In the 19th century a whole new era in publishing began. A series of technical developments, in the book trade as in other industries, dramatically raised output and lowered costs. Stereotyping, the iron press, the application of steam power, mechanical typecasting and typesetting, new methods of reproducing illustrations—these inventions, developed through the century and often resisted by the printer, amounted to a revolution in book production. Paper, made by hand up to 1800, formed more than 20 percent of the cost of a book in 1740; by 1910 it had fallen to a little more than 7 percent. Bindings, too, became less expensive. After 1820 cloth cases began to be used in place of leather, and increasingly the publisher issued his books already bound. Previously, he had done so only with less expensive books; the bindings of others had been left to the bookseller or private buyer. In Europe and America, expansion and competition were the essence of the century, and the book trade had a full share of both. While the population of Europe doubled, that of the United States increased fifteenfold. Improved means of communication led to wider distribution, and a thirst for self-improvement and entertainment greatly expanded readership, leading to a rapid growth in every category of book from the scholarly to the juvenile. The interplay of technical innovation and social change was never closer. As the development of the railways encouraged people to travel, a demand arose for reading material to lessen the tedium of the long journeys. The only victim in the book trade was design, part of the price that was paid almost universally in the first phase of machine production.

Publishing was now well established, with its characteristic blend of commerce and idealism. Their tendency to specialize made French and German publishers more vulnerable to change than their British colleagues, who aimed as a rule at greater flexibility. Literary and intellectual currents were flowing strongly and the number of new books rose by leaps and bounds. Rough figures for Britain indicate 100 new titles per year up to about 1750, rising to 600 by 1825, and to 6,000 before the end of the century. Equally characteristic was the appearance of popular series at low prices, “literature for the millions,” as Archibald Constable was the first to call it. The forerunner was the publisher John Bell’s The Poets of Great Britain (rivaling Dr. Johnson’s), which appeared in 1777–83, in 109 volumes at six shillings each, when even a slim volume usually cost a guinea or more.

By the 1850s the application of the new techniques of mass production had brought down the price of an inexpensive reprint to one shilling, as in the Railway Library of novels (George Routledge, 1,300 vol., 1848–98), for instance, or in the three series of classics issued by H.G. Bohn in 1846, 1850, and 1853. Later reprints were cheaper still. Least expensive was Cassell’s National Library (209 vol., 1886–90), bound in paper for threepence and in cloth for sixpence—that is, one-twelfth the price of the Bell set. On the Continent, two German series were outstanding. The Tauchnitz Collection of British and American Authors (1841–1939) became known to thousands of travelers. Tauchnitz voluntarily paid royalties and forbade the sale of his editions in Britain. Even more successful was Reclams Universal-Bibliothek, begun in 1867. An important factor in this series, as in others later, was the release of works through the expiration of copyright.

Book piracy

In the United States, publishing gradually became centralized in a few cities—Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City. Although American literature put down strong roots during the 19th century, piracy from Britain rose to great heights. There was sharp competition to be the first to secure proofs of any important new book. Publishers waiting at the dockside for new British books could produce an American edition almost within hours, as they did in 1823 with Sir Walter Scott’s Peveril of the Peak. In the absence of international copyright agreements, the British author usually received nothing, but there were honourable exceptions; Harper Brothers, for instance, paid considerable royalties to Charles Dickens and Thomas Macaulay, among others. There was also at least one famous case of piracy in reverse. When Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin came out in the United States in 1852, 1,500,000 copies rapidly appeared in England, some editions selling for sixpence. Though it can be argued by some people that piracy is not only inevitable but possibly even desirable for the sake of cultural diffusion in some circumstances, the availability of inexpensive foreign books, if prolonged as it almost certainly was in the United States, can damage the prospects for home-produced literature. Though there were some household names, such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American writers in general had a lean time; and the strong development of the magazine short story and the lecture tour in the United States has been attributed in part to their difficulties. Toward the end of the century American publishing was further enriched by translations of many foreign works, as a result of the flood of immigrants into New York City.

Price regulation

While 19th-century publishing was competitive and individualistic, its growing volume pointed increasingly to the need for greater organization. A major problem, once booksellers had become distinct from publishers, was suicidal price-cutting in the retail trade. Though price regulation ran counter to accepted notions of free competition and met with fierce opposition, in the general interest of the industry it was inevitable. Like copyright, it helped to provide a firm structure within which fair prices could be calculated. The net price principle, first raised in the previous century by the German publisher Reich, was adopted in Germany in 1887 through the work of the Börsenverein, the trade organization founded in 1825. Under this principle, the publisher allows a trade discount to the bookseller only on condition that the book is sold to the public at not less than its “net published price” as fixed by the publisher. In England, a first attempt to introduce the net price principle by the booksellers in the 1850s was condemned to failure by the Free Traders; but toward the end of the century some publishers, led by Alexander Macmillan, began to replace the variable discounts by fixed prices. To press for the new system, the Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland was formed in 1895, and the Publishers Association was created in 1896. These two organizations then worked out the Net Book Agreement (1901), primarily through the efforts of Frederick (later Sir Frederick) Macmillan. The principle has since been generally adopted, although only to a limited extent in the United States. At roughly the same time, the founding of the Society of Authors (1884) in England and the Authors’ League (1912) in the United States helped to standardize fair dealing over contracts and the payment of royalties to authors.

Trade catalogs

The trade also became better organized in the provision of comprehensive catalogs of current books. These began as early as the twice-yearly book fairs at Frankfurt (first catalog 1564) and Leipzig (first catalog 1594). So great was the value of the Frankfurt catalog that an English edition was published in 1617–28. Eventually, all such semiprivate ventures, as A Catalogue of all the Books Printed in the United States (1804) or English catalogs deriving from The Publishers’ Circular (1837) or Whitaker’s (1874), became national lists, such as the Bibliographie de la France (from 1811), the U.S. Cumulative Book List (from 1898), the Deutsche National-bibliographie (from 1931), and the British National Bibliography (from 1950).

Development of copyright law

Copyright, too, underwent considerable development. By the end of the century, most countries had some provision, and various terms of protection were tried, running from publication or from the date of the author’s death. The United States first enacted legislation in 1790, France in 1793, and Germany in 1839. Moves toward an international code began in 1828 in Denmark. They took the form of reciprocal treaty arrangements between individual countries by which foreign authors received the same protection as did native authors. Britain joined the movement in several arrangements between 1844 and 1886. In 1885 a uniform international system of copyright was initiated by the Berne Convention. The customary term of protection is the author’s lifetime plus 50 years. Most countries subscribed to the Convention, but not the United States or Russia. The United States continued to protect its domestic printing industry up to 1955, when it joined the Universal Copyright Convention (Unesco 1952). While the Berne Convention prescribed a minimum level of protection, the Universal Convention was based on the concept of “national treatment”—each member country treating works by citizens of other member countries as it would those of its own citizens. Thus the United States was able to enter into an international agreement without the necessity of immediately revising its own copyright law. Since the Universal Convention contained a provision that the Convention would not be applicable between any two countries that belonged to the Berne Union, it served primarily as a treaty between the United States and the countries that recognized international copyright. The Soviet Union became a party to the Berne Convention in 1973.

The early 20th century

In the 20th century, the effects of state education in the more advanced countries became increasingly apparent. Standards of living rose, and, as in earlier times, these two conditions brought increased use and publication of books. During the late 1890s and early 1900s, many new publishing houses were founded. In the industrialized countries, though wages were rising, a small business could be staffed economically, and printing costs were such that it was economically feasible to print as few as 1,000 copies of a new book. It was thus comparatively easy to make a start, especially because the long-term credit that printers were prepared to grant made a minimum of capital necessary.

Book publishing grew to a substantial industry, consisting mostly of small units in the Western world but also embracing a number of large concerns, many of which were public corporations employing staffs of 1,000 or more. Specialization became frequent, particularly in educational books, as the needs of the new school populations were realized. Some companies, such as Macmillan, in both its British and American houses, had begun to issue schoolbooks almost by chance; then, as their sales grew most profitably, they developed separate departments for school and college textbooks. Others, such as The American Book Company and Methuen in London, had begun specifically with educational books in mind. For more than one leading London firm, India, despite its high illiteracy rate, began to grow strongly as a market and to repay the care and expense involved in setting up separate Indian branches.

The first literary agents

A new factor at this time, which was to change the financial climate for fiction publishers in particular, was the advent of the literary agent. The first agent began business in 1875, and between 1900 and 1914 many more appeared. Reasonable though it was that authors who were unable themselves to handle their business with publishers satisfactorily should employ a professional to bargain for them, the higher rates of royalty and larger advance payments thus secured cut seriously into a publisher’s profit. The increased cost made it considerably more difficult to finance the most speculative part of the business, the encouragement of new talent. The system of literary agents began in Britain but spread rapidly to the United States and also to the Continent, though in the latter it did not assume so great an importance. Keenly resented at first, the literary agent, by pressing for higher payment to authors he represented, may have been indirectly responsible for the greater selling efforts that some publishers began to make early in the century.

Sales methods

The discreet sales methods of the 19th century, whereby the sales representative merely showed his samples and the publisher took small spaces in newspapers for the bare announcement of title and author of his new books, were replaced by more forceful techniques. In this effort American publishers took a prominent part. Less hampered by inhibitions over the more blatant forms of salesmanship than their European colleagues, publishing houses in New York City began to take large advertisements, make extravagant claims for the qualities of their books, and thus build up bigger sales for new books than was customary in other countries. The existence of a prosperous middle class with fast-growing incomes was one factor; the vast spread of the population across the continent was another. These factors, combined with the development of the railroad, led to the successful development of mail-order advertising and selling. The sale of books, such as works of reference, by subscription was another technique that rapidly developed and grew into a business worth millions of dollars in the United States and elsewhere. It involved securing an undertaking to buy on installments over many months an already published set of books; it could also be used to secure advance orders for an expensive work, probably in several volumes, that the publisher was planning to issue, as was sometimes done in the 18th century. Continental countries also exploited the method, and considerable use was made of the door-to-door canvasser.

Effects of World War I

The coming of war in 1914 naturally had a disrupting, though not wholly destructive, effect upon book publishing in European countries. Shortage of paper necessitated rationing to two-thirds of prewar consumption in the case of Britain, while from hundreds of thousands of those in the armed forces came a tremendous demand for light reading. Although at one time the cost of paper rose to eight times its prewar level, sales of books increased sharply. The extra quantities could be supplied only at the expense of quality, and the standards of paper and binding were appalling. It would have been disastrous for a publisher to be left with large stocks of these books since paper supplies quickly returned to normal after the war, and the poorly produced books became unsalable. Of continental countries, Germany suffered the worst shortages, though the principal publishers were able to stay in business; in many respects a worse ordeal awaited them in the postwar inflation. In Britain, there was reluctance to recognize books as of any special importance to the national effort; virtually no direct use of them was made by the government, and it was not until the last four months of the war that a small proportion of publishers’ staffs were granted any relief from compulsory national service.

An immediate aftereffect of the war in Europe was a sharp reduction in the purchasing power of the middle class. Whereas before, in most European countries, a proportion of the educated and professional classes bought new books regularly, high taxation, inflation, and trade depression in the postwar years cut down on spare money. Those publishers who continued to cater only to that public found it increasingly difficult to trade profitably, and many went out of business or were absorbed into larger firms. In the United States, on the other hand, boom conditions in the postwar years produced a still more prosperous and enlarged middle class ready to absorb an increasing supply of books. The number of publishing houses grew; and more American authors, such as Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway, found a world market. British and continental publishers turned more readily than before to New York City in search of fresh talent. Universities also increased in number more rapidly in the United States than elsewhere, producing a larger demand for college textbooks. Publishing them became an immensely important part of the business for many U.S. firms, which in some cases depended upon their profitable college departments to finance other parts of their operation, such as the fiction side.

The book club

A new development of vast potential at this time was the book club, an association of members who undertook to purchase, usually each month, a book selected for them by a committee, the advantage being that the book in question was supplied at a lower price than that at which it could be bought in a bookshop. The scheme, of which an early forerunner was the Swiss Co-operative Movement in about 1900, had obvious attractions for the part of the reading public that had no direct access to a bookseller. The pioneer Book-of-the-Month Club in America (1926) developed a membership that ran into hundreds of thousands, followed by The Literary Guild, its great rival, and specialized book clubs that covered a variety of special reader interests. These clubs were strongly opposed at first by both publishers and booksellers, who disliked the additional emphasis placed upon the potential best-seller, but they came to supply a genuine need. They also helped to offset the enormous amount of book borrowing from libraries. From the 1950s onward, however, their popularity was somewhat affected by the availability of inexpensive paperbound books sold in thousands of outlets outside the regular book channels.

Design standards

As noted above, machine production had lowered standards of design. The English designer William Morris and his Kelmscott Press, however, had begun to work for better typography and book design in the 1890s; and his example had led to the establishment of other private presses, such as The Doves Press and the Ashendene Press, which produced editions (usually limited) of exceptional beauty, printed on handmade paper. Though aimed essentially at the collector and issued at high prices, such books began to influence the more discerning publisher; and by the 1920s a few firms, such as Alfred Knopf in New York City, Chatto and Windus and Jonathan Cape in London, and the Insel Verlag in Leipzig, were seen to be far ahead of their competitors in their standards of design. With careful planning, skillful selection of typeface, and provision of layouts to guide the printer, more and more publishers managed to achieve typographically handsome books at a commercial price. These efforts were part of the Design in Industry movement, which sought to demonstrate that mass production need not preclude beauty. It should be noted, however, that responsibility for design was passing from the printer to the publisher; as the former, with the growth of his business, became more the industrialist and less the craftsman, the latter realized that he must himself take charge of this aspect of the book.

The Great Depression

The great trade slump that began in October 1929 brought a swift decline in the prosperity of American publishing. By 1931 British publishers could no longer depend upon selling a high proportion of their books to the United States, either in the form of physical copies or by way of a contract conceding the U.S. rights. Though the book trade of Europe proved a little more resilient than some other industries, it passed through a difficult period. Sales declined, profits were negligible, and there were many bankruptcies. Attempts were made to find new outlets for books and fresh ways to attract the public to them. In London an annual Book Exhibition was run by The Sunday Times from 1933 to 1938; and The New York Times tried a similar venture in its city. The Germans continued to hold their annual Book Fair in Leipzig, but this was primarily a trade function. Some British newspapers, striving for higher circulation, approached publishers to supply them with huge numbers of their popular books, specially printed, to be given away or sold very cheaply in exchange for coupons from the papers. Booksellers resented the practice, but for hard-pressed publishers it was financially attractive. In the rather desperate climate of the times, some publishers also spent inordinate amounts on newspaper advertising. Reprint book clubs proliferated too, again to the benefit of the few publishers and authors fortunate enough to secure a choice. In 1932 a valuable innovation that stimulated sales was the Book Token, a form of gift certificate. The invention of an English publisher, Harold Raymond, the Book Token could be exchanged for a book of specified value at any participating bookshop. It was at first opposed by many booksellers; but it went on to become a major factor in Christmas sales, and the system was adopted in other countries and by other trades.

Even in the depressed conditions, publishers still dreamed of tapping a wider readership. This began to become a reality in 1935, when Allen Lane launched his pioneer Penguin series of paperbacks. It was a risky operation, involving speculatively high initial printings to keep down the unit cost. But, despite the strongly held belief that paperbacks would not appeal outside the Continent, where they had sold freely, and the resistance of booksellers, who feared a sharp reduction in their receipts, the new series quickly caught on. They represented remarkable value at the original price of sixpence, equivalent to the cost of a small item in a variety store. Though printed on cheap paper, the books employed good typography—far superior to that of any earlier attempts at paperbacks—and the original cover design was attractive in the bold simplicity of its orange and white stripes. A U.S. agency was arranged shortly before World War II and was later taken over by Victor Weybright, who subsequently established the highly successful New American Library for the mass promotion of paperbacks in the world market.

Nazi persecution of the Jews in the immediate prewar years and the impact of the war itself caused a wave of emigration, from Germany and Austria in particular, which brought fresh publishing talent to both Britain and the United States as well as to other countries, including Australia. Some of the striking developments in the production of art books, with beautiful coloured illustrations, were a direct result of this movement, which bore its fullest fruit after the war.

World War II and the postwar period

The war that in 1939 European publishers had feared would utterly destroy their business proved in many respects less terrible in its effects on books than had been imagined. While the destruction of buildings, plants, and vast stocks of books, most notably in London and later in Leipzig, brought publishing to a standstill for individual firms, the activity as a whole continued. As in 1914 but to an even greater extent, the demand for reading matter for both instruction and entertainment grew enormously. The nature of the war, with its long periods of waiting alternating with intense bouts of frenzied activity, both induced the need and provided the opportunity for reading. As a result, book sales in the “free” countries rose to fresh heights. The occupied countries of Europe endured censorship and a tight control of materials; but most publishers survived and were swift to renew contacts with colleagues in London and New York City immediately after the war.

In the United States, though they were subject to some shortages and inconvenience, publishers were comparatively untouched by the war, and their business expanded rapidly. In Britain, however, because of the acute pressure on shipping, the importation of esparto grass, an essential ingredient for good book papers, was strictly limited, and a publisher’s paper ration was reduced to 37 12 percent of his prewar annual consumption. By closer setting of type and the use of much thinner paper, the ration was stretched to produce the maximum number of copies, but the final appearance of British books inevitably suffered, and they began to compare very unfavourably with those produced in the United States.

In countries that suffered severe paper shortage there was, of course, a sharp reduction in the number of new books and in the size of editions; consequently, with the increase in demand, the available books were rapidly sold out. The result was an enormous, if illusory, increase of profitability for publishers; and despite heavy wartime taxation they found themselves in far better shape financially than ever before. Instead of holding large and often very slow-selling stocks with insufficient cash resources, publishers had little stock but ample cash. There was, too, the marginal advantage that those new authors who were able to secure publication in the war years could be virtually certain that their books would be quickly sold out. In these artificial conditions, many publishers were more prepared to risk the work of an untried author. Against this, however, was the very serious shortage of standard works of every kind, including classics and educational and reference books; at one time the cry went up that “Shakespeare is out of print!” While a small extra tonnage of paper was released in Britain in 1942 for the reprinting of books that were considered “nationally important” in wartime, no one could possibly pretend that there was not a real book famine in most European countries. After the war it took about five years for paper to become reasonably plentiful again. Despite the disruption brought by the war, however, interest in books had increased enormously, and sales were furthered by the total disappearance or severe rationing in most of the warring countries of so many consumer articles that normally compete with books. Contrary to the fears of many publishers, a new reading public was emerging, and it was not lost in the postwar world.

The postwar period

After the end of the war, there was an awkward year or so of reorganization and anticlimax, when many wartime publications suddenly became unsalable; but then publishing, in almost every country, once more expanded rapidly. People who had been cut off entirely from the rest of the world displayed an immense hunger for the books that had appeared during the previous six years. Much new business developed in the sale of the actual books and in translation rights. Such conditions continued at a higher level than they had attained in the 1930s, and they were to be further stimulated with the rise of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Social change came to many countries, bringing a broader spread of purchasing power and above all wider educational opportunity for much of the population. The change was to set book publishing upon a bolder and more adventurous course, turning it from a minor industry into one of sufficient growth and profitability to attract professional investors.

A feature of the early postwar years was the remarkable phoenixlike rise of the German book trade, literally from the ashes of the Allied air raids, which had destroyed the principal cities with their publishing offices and printing works. Because Leipzig was in the Soviet-controlled zone of Germany, however, the centre of the trade moved to Frankfurt for the first time since about 1650. As part of its drive to become the commercial capital of West Germany, Frankfurt developed its exhibition facilities rapidly. Thus, the book trade fair had ideal conditions in which to thrive. Before 1939 it had been largely a domestic affair at which German publishers displayed their new works to booksellers, with only a small number of foreign publishers participating and those almost entirely continental; but it steadily grew to be the greatest meeting place for publishers from throughout the world.

In the nations that formed the Soviet bloc following World War II, publishing was subjected to a state control similar to that initiated in Soviet Russia in 1917. Very few of the famous publishing houses of Poland and Czechoslovakia survived, and the houses that did survive came under the ownership and control of the state. The normal pattern was for all books on a particular group of subjects to be issued from one publishing house. Thus in Hungary, for example, the principal houses dealt with science, political history, agriculture, music, belles lettres, or military or technical subjects. The organization in Romania was similar; but in East Germany it was significant that many of the prewar firms remained, though all were subject to government control.

Besides the economic and social changes that favoured publishing after 1945, an outburst of knowledge, particularly in science and technology, produced many new subjects, many of them highly specialized, all of which called for new books. The many new universities and colleges of technology that sprang up throughout the world formed a strong market for the thousands of college books that came to make up such a large part of many a publisher’s list. At the same time, there was a major advance in printing, a break away from the traditional letterpress system dependent upon lead type. Photocomposition (composing of printed matter by photographic means rather than by hand), coupled with offset printing technique, obviated much of the handwork of the earlier methods, improved working speeds, and prevented costs from rising as steeply as they would otherwise have done. The trend was toward giant machines for mass production, giving a favourable price for cases in which 100,000 or more copies were needed. Such giant machines became essential for the printing of paperbacks, but the problem remained of printing economically those “short runs” of 3,000 or so in which the works of new authors, from whom many of the important books of the future must come, are normally tried out.

The paperback revolution

By the early 1950s the paperback revolution was well under way. Growing from the prewar Penguins and spreading to many other firms, paperbacks began to proliferate into well-printed, inexpensive books on every conceivable subject, including a wide range of first-class literature. Generally known as pocket books on the Continent, they swept the world, converting book borrowers into buyers and creating new book readers on a scale never known before. Their use has been particularly widespread in the developing countries, notably those of Africa. The new paperbacks had remarkable ubiquity, being found not only in bookshops but also in drugstores, street kiosks, and newsstands in railway stations, airports, and hotel lobbies. The low price of the paperback, which moved books for the first time into the area of impulse buying, is due essentially to the large number printed, seldom fewer than 30,000 and frequently far more, and not, as is often supposed, to the use of paper instead of a hard cover for the binding.

By far the greater number of paperbacks have been reprints of books that have had some success in their original clothbound form. Normally the paperback publisher makes an offer to buy the paperback rights from the publisher of the hardcover edition, and the paperback royalties are shared between the author and the hardcover publisher. While many of the big paperback houses have produced a certain number of new, hitherto unpublished books, the paperback operation is dependent in the main upon books originating with the conventional publishers. It is a fallacy therefore to suppose that, for all their seeming dominance, the paperback is likely to oust the hardcover book.

Another type of paperback, selling in smaller numbers, has sprung from the enormous growth in the number of university students throughout the world. This is the reissue of works of scholarship, science, religion, literature, and art. Many had been out of print for years, and they had often been issued originally in small editions of no more than 2,000 copies by university presses or other specialized publishers. This great extension of the market began in the United States in the 1950s, with prices ranging from 65 cents to $1.95, at that time unusually high levels for paperbacks; the idea soon spread to Britain and the Continent. This operation has usually remained in the hands of the original publishers of the books, who have developed their own series of “university paperback books.” It became customary for many new academic books to be issued simultaneously in both cloth (hardcover) editions and as paperbacks, the usual price of the latter being a little more than half that of the cloth edition.

University and government presses

The increase in the number of universities was accompanied by an increase in the number of university presses. The purpose of these presses is to serve the needs of scholarship—i.e., to publish specialized material that a purely commercial firm would find impracticable to handle. Their freedom from the more acute profit-making pressures, often a result of direct subsidies, coupled with their assured, if limited, market, enables many to reach high standards of production and commercial viability. Some of the older establishments, such as the Oxford University Press, are, of course, large, profitable organizations with worldwide connections and a long list of more general publications.

Another type of publishing house not usually in direct competition with ordinary firms is the state printing office, which is responsible in many countries for issuing public and official material. In England, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, which was originally created in 1786 to coordinate office supplies for government departments, has come to issue a wide range of excellent books and pamphlets in connection with museums, galleries, and the advisory function of ministries, besides official papers. In the United States, the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C., was established by Congress in 1860 for similar purposes; it too has steadily widened its field of operations. China has developed a similar organization to issue its publications.

Modern publishing practice

Every publishing house has manufacturing, marketing, and accounts departments, but the heart of the business lies in the editorial function. This has changed in its mode of operation through the years and still varies from one country to another and between firms but not in essentials. The editor—who is sometimes called the sponsor and who is often a director—selects the books to be published, deals with the author, and is responsible for the critical reading of the typescript (and its revision if necessary) and for seeing the book through the press, in consultation with the manufacturing and marketing departments. So vital can this role be that a particular editor’s presence in a firm or transfer to another can be a major factor in attracting authors. Besides the editor, there is also an editorial department, which is responsible for the detailed preparation of the typescript before it is printed. This receives more attention today than in the past. Facts, figures, and references are checked, and inelegancies of style are polished where necessary. Careful attention by a skilled editor at this stage can contribute greatly to the quality of many books.

Educational publishing

A particular branch of editorial work that has grown to be of cardinal importance since World War II concerns the conception, planning, and publication of the hundreds of books needed for educational programs at every level. Throughout the world editors specializing in school books visit teachers and lecturers to promote the writing of the required texts. The educational editor must concentrate almost wholly upon the commissioning of books to fit a particular syllabus in a school or university. Rarely, if ever, does the editor receive an unsolicited typescript that can be accepted at once. The editor must seek material by regular visits, either personally or by an assistant, to schools or colleges to find the teachers who have the makings of authorship. Outlines or drafts of texts are evaluated by editors who develop the central themes into a usable form. Much time must then be spent on revision and production before the book is completed.

In the United States the boards of education in some of the larger states review the available textbooks and approve a selection for use in their school districts. This selection process is called adoption, and publishers compete to have their books adopted for use because of the large volume of sales that are thus guaranteed. The schoolbook that is widely adopted may sell for a generation and reward author and publisher on a scale beyond the dreams of those concerned only with general books. Equally, nothing can fail so completely as the schoolbook that gets no adoptions.

Forms of copyright

Book publishing depends fundamentally on copyright, which is the sole right to copy or to produce a work, conceded to the publisher by the author through a mutual agreement. Without this element of monopoly, it would be impossible for a publisher to trade. It is also the guarantee for an author that he has legal rights to prevent the use of his material without fair compensation. On the expiration of copyright, anyone is free to publish the work in question without payment to the author or his heirs. Copyright at one time was simple and indivisible; many alternative forms of text reproduction have developed, however. Their exploitation is governed by individual clauses in the agreement. These subsidiary rights may be briefly summarized. American rights for a British book and British rights for a book of American origin can prove to be exceptionally profitable. Though a book normally has its greatest sale in its country of origin, there are cases in which it does even better abroad. The richness of the American market gives it a particular attraction for publishers and authors of almost every other country. Translation rights have become a valuable source of additional revenue, particularly since the establishment of the Berne Convention.

All the signatory countries agreed to copyright protection for the unpublished works of nationals of other member countries and for all the work first published in the Convention countries. While many books may earn no more than a few hundred dollars from the rights of translation in a single country, some world best-sellers, by authors of international stature, have a demand in almost every country, new or old, for a translation, and the aggregate earnings are then immense. Paperback rights for the more salable books, whether fiction or fact, are customarily offered to one of the major paperback houses, which flourish in most larger countries. For a best-seller there can be keen competition between the paperback houses, and advances well into seven figures may be offered to the original publisher, who normally controls the reprint rights. The original publisher also stipulates the earliest date at which the paperback may appear; as a rule, this is not less than 12 months after first publication. Rights for serial publication may be sold in several divisions: first serial rights, for which the best price can be obtained from a large-circulation newspaper or magazine in the capital city, may allow the publication of a number of installments appearing several weeks ahead of the issue of the book, or the serialization may “straddle” the appearance of the book, some installments before, the rest after. Second serial rights, for which much less is paid, can still yield useful sums: after first serialization has taken place, lesser papers in other parts of the country, or in other countries where the same language is spoken, can use the book. Digest rights, and their allied condensed book rights, represent another lucrative subsidiary use for books of wide general appeal.

Book club rights are also among those the publisher can exploit; the fees received from the clubs are also shared with the author. Broadcast and television rights in books interest a publisher primarily for the possibility of bringing a book and its author to the attention of a large segment of the public, rather than for the amounts paid. As a rule, there must be direct quotation from the text if a broadcasting company is to pay anything to the publisher. A television interview with the author, including sight of a copy of the book, is of great publicity value, and the author may even receive a fee for the appearance, but this is not part of the book’s earnings. If the author can show a film relating to the book, it would be paid for at the appropriate rates for television use. In radio broadcasting, the reading of a book as a serial is one most remunerative possibility; the other is its full dramatization as a serial. The latter is, of course, still more valuable on television. Such use of new books has become more frequent; in the past this treatment was more often accorded to works of classic status. Dramatic and film rights can have importance for fiction, biography, and other general books, but only a small fraction of 1 percent of those published can be exploited by these means. From the publisher’s standpoint, it is reasonable to share in the proceeds from the sale of these rights, for they result from the publisher’s efforts.

The last group of subsidiary rights, rights for mechanical reproduction by film micrography, xerography, tape or disc recording, or any other technique of sight or sound, are of increasing concern to publishers. Dry-copying machines, easily operated, are to be found throughout the world in public, university, and school libraries, and while ordinarily only single copies can legally be made solely for the purposes of private study, it is a simple matter, though illegal, to run off a number of copies of long extracts, which then make it unnecessary to buy more than one copy of the book. Similarly, microfilm enables a single copy to satisfy many users and reduces the number of copies of the book that must be kept available in a library. Wherever material originates in the form of a book, however, the publisher must retain an interest in all forms of reproduction as part of his resources for promoting experimental and imaginative work.

Publisher’s agreement

A publisher’s agreement with an author normally specifies that in consideration of certain payments the former shall, during the legal term of copyright, have the exclusive right to produce or reproduce the said work in any material legible form throughout the world. In many cases, however, this agreement is modified to exclude some of the subsidiary rights named above, depending on the bargaining power of the author or his agent. After clauses specifying the extent of the rights conferred, the basic clause of a royalty agreement is that which states the rate of royalty to be paid. A typical wording is as follows: “On all copies of the said work sold on the normal terms a royalty of ten percent shall be paid on the published price rising to twelve percent after the sale of 5,000 copies and to fifteen percent after 10,000 copies.” Other clauses provide for somewhat lower royalty rates on export sales and on cheap editions, on which the publisher’s margin of profit is considerably less. Provision is also made for division between author and publisher of any payments received for such subsidiary rights as are included in the agreement. A publisher can fairly claim a share in them if they arise from the fact of book publication. Proofreading is another important matter covered by the agreement, the author being responsible for this. If the cost of making his corrections exceeds a stated figure he must pay for the excess. Lastly, in the majority of publishing agreements there is an option clause under which the author undertakes to give the publisher the first offer of his “next literary work suitable for publication in book form,” usually with the addition that if, after a stipulated time, no terms shall have been agreed on for its publication the author is free to submit it elsewhere. The exact form of the legal instrument varies in detail; it is possibly drawn up in the greatest detail by U.S. firms because of the complexities of their system of selling: e.g., by mail order, subscription, and similar means, in which the publisher must incur abnormal costs in order to secure the business. The vital condition for this publisher–author relationship, in the past often conducted with complete informality, is that there must be a legal document, a contract, setting out the rights and obligations of the two parties.

Literary agents and scouts

Literary agents have become increasingly important and prominent as publishing has grown more complex. A high proportion of the more successful authors of novels and general books now employ literary agents to place their books with publishers and to handle negotiations with them, the author being charged a commission of 10 percent. Besides negotiating and drawing up the contract with the firm, the good agency is equipped to handle the many subsidiary rights. Because an important element in the agent’s value to an author is his capacity to extract better terms than the author would himself, it is not surprising that publishers have resented the agent’s intrusion into the personal, and often very friendly, relationships between themselves and their authors. There can be no doubt, however, that agents do perform a valuable service in relieving an author of the considerable amount of routine work that his literary affairs may involve. Advice on possible new books to be written and occasionally, for the author of exceptional promise, an advance on anticipated earnings are also part of the assistance that the agent may offer. It must be emphasized, however, that agents are interested mainly in general books; they are seldom equipped to handle specialized and technical works.

Another publishing auxiliary who became significant in the 1950s and 1960s is the literary scout. Though a few had been employed earlier, mainly by U.S. publishers, who had their “lookouts” in one or two European cities, the practice is now more widespread. Many European publishers employ residents in London, Paris, and New York City to alert them at once to any promising new book, either written or just published. The scout, who may be connected with a newspaper or literary agency, is usually paid some modest amount as a retainer, probably with a commission of 1 or 2 percent on the published price of the books he recommends, in effect a small royalty on sales. On occasion a valuable find can be quite lucrative to the scout; frequently everything depends upon the speed with which a copy of the work can be got into the hands of his principal.

Selling and promotion

The publisher’s techniques for book promotion have become increasingly sophisticated in all advanced countries. The typical traveler or book salesman is likely to hold a college degree, certainly in the United States; he receives a careful briefing from the home office, with elaborate samples and sales aids, and perhaps a car provided, or partly provided, by the firm. The itinerary for calls on bookshops (or in the case of the educational representative, schools and colleges) is prescribed by a supervisor, who usually checks the resulting orders against a quota. A well-run publishing house issues two or three seasonal announcement lists with details of its forthcoming books, as well as an annual catalog of its present and past books still in print, which are sent to the principal booksellers and librarians. For many books, a prospectus may be issued, both for the use of booksellers and for direct mailing by the publisher. The distribution of review copies to the press is the last item in the normal program. These three steps, traveling, catalogs, and reviews, are the vital elements in the machinery of book distribution, which it is virtually impossible to accomplish without the professional work of a publisher. The capacity of some authors to produce a quite presentable book with the help of a printer still leaves them far from their objective unless they can find a publisher to undertake its distribution.

Newspaper and periodical advertising is the publisher’s principal means of reaching the public, and standards here have also risen considerably since World War II. Originally handled entirely by the publisher’s own staff, it is now not uncommon for the larger houses, especially in the United States and in some European countries, to employ advertising agencies to prepare the copy and the general details of the campaign for any important book. While few authors consider that their books are advertised adequately and most publishers are highly doubtful whether press advertising does in fact sell books, the amounts spent in relation to sales revenue are much higher than for most other commodities, seldom less than 5 percent for new books. Without their receipts from publishers’ advertising, some periodicals would find it impossible to devote so much space to book reviews, which are in themselves a most valuable aid to sales. The news value of many new books also enables them to secure free publicity through references in the general, as distinct from the literary, pages of a newspaper. A publisher with imagination, or the firm’s press officer if there is one, can often suggest aspects of a book susceptible to such treatment. Broadcasting and television services, too, can sometimes be interested in books and their authors, and the resultant publicity may then be extremely effective.

Over the whole field of sales promotion, as publishing houses have grown in size and profitability, there has been a marked tendency for the more commercial methods of general business to be applied to books, which are aggressively promoted to retailers and the public in the same manner as are many other commodities. Though this may increase sales, at least in the short term, it may be doubted whether it is in the interests of the public and to the long-term advantage of good publishing.

Newspaper publishing

“A community needs news,” said the British author Dame Rebecca West, “for the same reason that a man needs eyes. It has to see where it is going.” For William Randolph Hearst, one of America’s most important newspaper publishers, news was “what someone wants to stop you [from] printing: all the rest is ads.” Both idealistic and mercenary motives have contributed to the development of modern newspapers, which continue to attract millions of regular readers throughout the world despite stern competition from radio, television, and the Internet. Modern electronics, which put a television set in almost every home in the Western world, also revolutionized the newspaper printing process, allowing news articles and photographs to be transmitted and published simultaneously in many parts of the world.

Newspapers can be published daily or weekly, in the morning or in the afternoon; they may be published for the few hundred inhabitants of a small town, for a whole country, or even for an international audience. A newspaper differs from other forms of publication in its immediacy, characteristic headlines, and coverage of a miscellany of topical issues and events. According to a report in 1949 by the Royal Commission on the Press in the United Kingdom, to qualify as news “an event must first be interesting to the public, and the public for this purpose means for each paper the people who read that paper.” But the importance of newspapers stretches far beyond a passing human interest in events. In the 19th century the first independent newspapers contributed significantly to the spread of literacy and of the concepts of human rights and democratic freedoms. Newspapers continue to shape opinions in the “global village” of the 21st century, where international preoccupations are frequently of concern to the individual, and where individual tragedies are often played out on an international stage. Since it is commonly held that individuals have a right to know enough about what is happening to be able to participate in public life, the newspaper journalist is deemed to have a duty to inform. Whenever this public right to know comes under attack, a heavy responsibility falls on the journalist.

Origins and early evidences

The daily newspaper is essentially the product of an industrialized society. In its independent form, the newspaper is usually integral to the development of democracy. The newspaper thus defined was fairly late in emerging, since it depended on a certain basic freedom of speech and relatively widespread literacy.

The Roman Empire

The urge to inform the public of official developments and pronouncements has been a characteristic of most autocratic rulers. This urge was fulfilled in ancient Rome by the Acta Diurna (“Daily Events”), a daily gazette dating from 59 BC and attributed in origin to Julius Caesar. Handwritten copies of this early journal were posted in prominent places in Rome and in the provinces with the clear intention of feeding the populace official information. The Acta Diurna was not, however, restricted to proclamations, edicts, or even to political decisions taken in the Roman Senate, the actions of which were reported separately in the Acta Senatus (literally “Proceedings of the Senate”). The typical Acta Diurna might contain news of gladiatorial contests, astrological omens, notable marriages, births and deaths, public appointments, and trials and executions. Such reading matter complemented the usual fare of military news and plebiscite results also given in the Acta Diurna and presaged the future popularity of such newspaper fillers as horoscopes, the obituary column, and the sports pages.

China

If the Acta Diurna was the forerunner of the modern newspaper in terms of content, it was, nevertheless, a government publication: the authorities decided what qualified as news for public consumption. The same applied to the regular pao, or reports of court affairs, circulated among the educated civil servants of Peking for more than a thousand years (AD 618–1911). The pao changed in format and title under the various dynasties, and technological change brought a shift from hand copying to printing from wooden type in the 17th century, but the durability of the pao was a testament to the stability of the civil servant class.

Medieval Europe

In Europe, the impetus for regular publication of news was lacking for several centuries after the breakup of the Roman Empire. The increased output of books and pamphlets made possible by the invention and further development of typographic printing (see the invention of typography) in the 15th and 16th centuries did not include any newspapers, properly defined. The nearest form was the newssheet, which was not printed but handwritten by official scribes and read aloud by town criers. News was also contained in the newsbook, or news pamphlet, which flourished in the 16th century as a means of disseminating information on particular topics of interest. One such pamphlet, printed in England by Richard Fawkes, and dated September 1513, was a description of the Battle of Flodden Field. Titled The Trew Encountre, this four-leaved pamphlet gave an eyewitness account of the battle together with a list of the English heroes involved. By the final decade of the 15th century, publication of newsbooks was running at more than 20 per year in England alone, matching a regular supply on the Continent. Authors and printers escaped official censorship or penalties by remaining anonymous or cultivating a certain obscurity, for it took a long time before the pamphlets came to the attention of the authorities. In any case the topics most frequently chosen for coverage—scandals, feats of heroism, or marvelous occurrences—were mainly nonpolitical and could not be regarded as a threat to the powerful. Governments in various countries were already in the vanguard of news publishing for propaganda purposes. The Venetian republic set a precedent by charging an admission fee of one gazeta (approximately three-fourths of a penny) to public readings of the latest news concerning the war with Turkey (1563), thus recognizing a commercial demand for news, even on the part of the illiterate. The term gazette was to become common among later newspapers sold commercially. Another popular title was to be Mercury (the messenger of the gods). The Mercurius Gallobelgicus (1588–1638) was among the earliest of a number of periodical summaries of the news that began to appear in Europe in the late 16th century. Newspaper names like Mercury, Herald, and Expresshave always been popular, suggesting the immediacy or freshness of the reading matter. Other names, such as Observer, Guardian, Standard, and Argus(a vigilant watcher), stress the social role played by newspapers in a democratic society.

The first newspapers

Newspaper development can be seen in three phases: first, the sporadic forerunners, gradually moving toward regular publication; second, more or less regular journals but liable to suppression and subject to censorship and licensing; and, third, a phase in which direct censorship was abandoned but attempts at control continued through taxation, bribery, and prosecution. Thereafter, some degree of independence has followed.

Commercial newsletters in continental Europe

The newsletter had been accepted as a conventional form of correspondence between officials or friends in Roman times, and in the late Middle Ages newsletters between the important trading families began to cross frontiers regularly. One family, the Fuggers, were owners of an important financial house in the German city of Augsburg; their regular newsletters were well-known even to outsiders. Traders’ newsletters contained commercial information on the availability and prices of various goods and services, but they also could include political news, just as the contemporary financial editor must consider the broader sweep of events likely to influence economic transactions. The commercial newsletter thus became the first vehicle of “serious” news, with its attempt at regular, frequent publication and concern with topical events generally.

The newsletter usually accorded primacy as a definite newspaper is the Relation of Strasbourg, first printed in 1609 by Johann Carolus. A close rival is the Avisa Relation oder Zeitung (Zeitung is the German word for “newspaper”), founded in the same year by Heinrich Julius, duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. In 1605, in the Low Countries, Abraham Verhoeven of Antwerp had begun publication of the Nieuwe Tijdingen (“New Tidings”), although the earliest surviving copy is dated 1621. In any case, this historical rivalry is evidence of a fairly sudden demand for newspapers at the start of the 17th century, and the continuous publication of the Nieuwe Tijdingen indicates that this demand soon became well-established. Although these publications were emerging throughout western Europe, it was the Dutch, with their advantageous geographical and trading position, who pioneered the international coverage of news through their corantos, or “current news.” The Courante uyt Italien, Duytsland, & C. (“News from Italy, Germany, and Elsewhere”) began to appear weekly or twice-weekly in 1618.

Similar rudimentary newspapers soon appeared in other European countries: Switzerland (1610), the Habsburg domains in central Europe (1620), England (1621), France (1631), Denmark (1634), Italy (1636), Sweden (1645), and Poland (1661). English and French translations of Dutch corantos were also available. But signs of official intolerance emerged fairly soon, and censorship stifled newspaper development in the late 17th century and into the 18th century in continental Europe. In Paris in 1631, the Nouvelles Ordinaires de Divers Endroits (“Common News from Many Places”), a publishing venture by the booksellers Louis Vendosme and Jean Martin, was immediately replaced by an officially authorized publication, La Gazette, published under the name of Théophraste Renaudot but with influential backing by Cardinal de Richelieu. The new publication was to continue (as La Gazette de France) until 1917, casting the shadow of authority over nonofficial newspapers throughout its life. The first French daily—Le Journal de Paris—was not started until 1777; and although the Revolution of 1789 brought a temporary upsurge in newspaper publishing, with 350 papers being issued in Paris alone, the return to monarchy brought another clampdown. Napoleon I had his own official organ—Le Moniteur Universel, first published by Charles-Joseph Panckoucke (one of a family of booksellers and writers) in 1789 and lasting until 1869—and during his reign there were only three other French newspapers.

In Germany, early newsletter development was soon hampered by the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), with its restrictions on trade, shortage of paper, and strict censorship. Even in peacetime censorship and parochialism inhibited the German press. Among the important regional newspapers were the Augsburger Zeitung (1689), the Vossische Zeitung in Berlin (1705), and the Hamburgische Correspondent (1714). In Austria the Wiener Zeitung was started in 1703 and is considered to be the oldest surviving daily newspaper in the world. The oldest continuously published weekly paper was the official Swedish gazette, the Post-och Inrikes Tidningar; begun in 1645, it adopted an Internet-only format in 2007. Sweden is also notable for having introduced the first law (in 1766) guaranteeing freedom of the press, but the concept of an independent press barely existed in most of Europe until the middle of the 19th century, and until then publishers were constantly subject to state authority.

Early newspapers in Britain and America

Britain

The British press made its debut—an inauspicious one—in the early 17th century. News coverage was restricted to foreign affairs for a long time, and even the first so-called English newspaper was a translation by Nathaniel Butter, a printer, of a Dutch coranto called Corante, or newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France, dated September 24, 1621. Together with two London stationers, Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer, Butter published a stream of corantos and avisos (Spanish: warnings or announcements), including a numbered and dated series of Weekley Newes, beginning in 1622. But a number of difficulties confronted a prospective publisher: a license to publish was needed; regular censorship of reporting was in operation from the earliest days; and foreign news no longer appeared because of a decree by the Court of the Star Chamber (in force from 1632 to 1638) completely banning the publication of accounts of the Thirty Years’ War.

Between the abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641 and the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1649, publishers enjoyed a short spell of freedom from strict official control. Publication of domestic news began to appear more regularly, shedding the original book form. News and headlines increasingly replaced the old title page. The Civil Wars (1642–51) acted as a stimulus to reporters and publishers, and 300 distinct news publications were brought out between 1640 and 1660, although many of these were only occasional reports from the battle front, such as Truths from York or News from Hull. Some contemporary publications, using words such as Intelligencer, Scout, Spy, or Postin their names, reflected the bellicosity of the times, but the less-politicized word Mercurystill abounded on many newspaper mastheads, including those of propaganda papers such as Mercurius Academicus (Royalist) and Mercurius Britannicus (Parliamentarian). The Parliamentarian victory brought strict control of the press from 1649 to 1658, and the restored monarchy was even more absolute, with the press being restricted to just two official papers. During the period of the Licensing Act (1662–94), an official surveyor of the press was given the sole privilege of publishing newspapers. The concept of the newspaper of record—the public documentation of legal notices—was established with the Oxford Gazette (founded 1665 and renamed the London Gazette within months), which was eventually followed by the Edinburgh Gazette (founded in 1699) and the Dublin Gazette (founded in 1706, but renamed Iris Oifigiúil in 1922 when the Belfast Gazette was founded). The Glorious Revolution (1688–89) produced a return to more permissive publishing laws and the first provincial presses were set up, starting with the Worcester Post Man (1690).

As it developed, the British press would remain principally a national one centred on Fleet Street in London. Appearing briefly was Lloyd’s News (1696), issuing from Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse, which had become a centre of marine insurance. The subsequent Lloyd’s List and Shipping Gazette (from 1734), with its combination of general and shipping news, exemplified both the importance of the City of London’s financial activities to the newspapers and the importance of a reliable and regular financial press to business.

In the early years of the 18th century, the British newspaper was approaching its first stage of maturity. After 1691, improvements in the postal system made daily publication practical, the first attempt at doing so being the single-sheet Daily Courant (1702–35), which consisted largely of extracts from foreign corantos. A more radical departure was the triweekly Review (1704–13), produced by Daniel Defoe, in which the writer’s opinion on current political topics was given, introducing the editorial, or leading article. Defoe had been imprisoned, in 1702, for his pamphlet The Shortest Way with Dissenters, but many eminent British writers were being attracted to the newspapers. Henry Muddiman had gained eminence as the “journalist” who edited the London Gazette (from 1666). John Milton had edited the Mercurius Politicus under Oliver Cromwell, and Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, The Spectator (published daily 1711–12). The Spectator and The Tatler (triweekly, 1709–11, also written by Steele) are commemorated in the modern magazines of the same name (see below Magazine publishing), but their incorporation of social and artistic news and comment influenced the content of the contemporary newspaper permanently. Sales of the popular Spectator sometimes ran as high as 3,000 copies, and already this circulation level was enough to attract advertising. An excise duty on advertisements was introduced by the Stamp Act (1712), along with other so-called taxes on knowledge aimed at curbing the nascent power of the press. The rate of duty, at one penny on a whole sheet (four sides of print), was the same as the cover price of The Spectator, and this effective doubling of the price killed it, along with many other newspapers. But the newspaper had already become a permanent part of the social and literary life in London, and not even higher duties could prevent the proliferation of newspaper titles throughout the century.

Typical of the new breed of English papers was The Daily Advertiser (1730–1807), which offered advertising space along with news of a political, commercial, and social nature. An important gap in the political pages was filled from 1771, when the right to publish proceedings in Parliament had been granted. This right was not won lightly, for illicit accounts of debates in the House had appeared in the monthly Political State of Great Britain (1711–40) and every effort had been made to stop them. But campaigners such as the political reformer John Wilkes (with the North Briton, 1762) eventually won out. Politicians of both Whig and Tory sympathies ran their own often scurrilous newspapers or simply bribed journalists with occasional handouts and annual stipends, but later in the century there emerged a more sophisticated reader who demanded, and received, an independent viewpoint. Eminent newspapers of the time included the Morning Post (1772), The Times (from 1788, but started as the Daily Universal Register in 1785), and The Observer (1791). Censorship continued in the guise of frequent libel prosecutions, and as late as 1810 the radical political essayist William Cobbett was imprisoned and fined for denouncing flogging in the army, but the principle of a free press, at least in peacetime conditions, had been firmly established.

North America

In North America, publication of newspapers was deterred during colonial times by the long arm of the British law, but after independence the United States could boast one of the world’s least restrictive sets of laws on publication. A first attempt at publishing, albeit abortive, was made in Boston by a radical from London, Benjamin Harris, in 1690. His Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, intended as a monthly series, was immediately stopped by the governor of Massachusetts. It was clear that free speech and a nonofficial press were not to be tolerated in the colonies. Boston was also the site of the first official newspaper, The Boston News-Letter (1704), with which the authorities replaced the proclamations, pamphlets, and newsletters previously used to convey news from London. In 1719 the original title was replaced by the Boston Gazette, printed by Benjamin Franklin’s elder brother, James, who soon produced the first independent American newspaper, the New-England Courant of 1721. William Bradford founded the first New York City newspaper, the New-York Gazette, in 1725, and his son Andrew was the first newspaper proprietor in Philadelphia. Further expansion of the colonies created 37 different titles by the outbreak of the American Revolution.

Colonial editors were aware of their responsibilities in creating a historical record of what was to be the new nation, and they cooperated in passing news to one another. In the absence of municipal offices, the printing office and newspaper headquarters often became a vital centre of community life. But frontier tensions led to passionate arguments, and newspapers became closely involved with political change. The Boston Tea Party (1773) itself is said to have been planned in a back room of the Boston Gazette, already nicknamed “Monday’s Dung Barge” by loyalists. After independence the burning issues created with the new republic were aired in many new papers, most of which took up highly partisan stances. Thomas Jefferson and the first Republicans (later Democrats) were supported by the Philadelphia Aurora (1790), while Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists benefited from the support of the Gazette of the United States (1789–1818). Many city papers moved from weekly to daily publication, the first of these being the Pennsylvania Evening Post in 1783. The Pennsylvania Packet changed its name to Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser when it became a daily in 1784, indicating a new source of revenue for newspapers; and this was confirmed by the New-York Daily Advertiser (1785), the first to be published as a daily from the beginning.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically guaranteed “the freedom of speech or of the press.” The right to criticize the government had been established as early as 1735, however, when John Peter Zenger, the publisher of the New-York Weekly Journal, was acquitted of criminal libel. After the temporary Alien and Sedition Acts (1798–1801), which included censorship clauses, were repealed, newspapers in the United States returned to polemics and public campaigns and set off on a course that was to help shape the modern character of the popular newspaper worldwide.

Early newspapers in Japan

A long tradition of news publication existed in Japan in the form of yomiuri (“sell and read,” as the papers were sold by reading them aloud) or kawara-ban (“tile-block printing,” the method of production). The kawara-ban broadsheets appeared continuously throughout the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), reporting popular festivals, natural disasters, important events such as the siege of Osaka Castle in 1615, and personal scandals—notably the double suicides fashionable during the Genroku period (1688–1704). Although much reporting concerned fairly innocuous occurrences, most writers preferred to remain anonymous for fear of the punishments that could be imposed by the shogunate officials for unauthorized public discussion of political and social problems.

Era of the Industrial Revolution

By 1800 educated citizens of most European countries and the United States could expect some access to independent news coverage and political comment, even if it was only to be found in clandestinely published newssheets. The basic formulas for serious newspapers and commercially successful, if sensational, popular newspapers had been worked out by shrewd writers and editors—members of the new profession of journalism. These formulas were to be elaborated throughout the 19th century, and by the end of the century the modern pattern of newspaper ownership and production had already been set in the United States and Britain, with newspapers passing from the realm of literature to that of big business.

Technological advances

New technology influenced newspapers both directly, through the revolution in printing techniques, and indirectly, through the rapid developments in transport and communications. In printing technology, necessity determined invention when the demand for newspapers exceeded the few thousand weekly copies required of the most popular titles. In 1814, the steam-driven “double-press” was introduced at The Times in London, allowing an output of 5,000 copies per hour. The higher output was a contributing factor in the rise of The Times’s circulation from 5,000 to 50,000 by the middle of the century. The hand-operated wooden press used for books, newspapers, and single sheets alike was further pushed into obsolescence by the invention of mechanical lead type, the Fourdrinier machine (which produced cheap cellulose paper in rolls), curved printing plates, automatic ink-feeds, and, in 1865, the cylindrical rotary press.

The main breakthrough, however, did not take place until the end of the century, with the introduction of automatic typesetting on Ottmar Mergenthaler’s Linotype machine. Until then, each line of words to be printed had to be lined up and justified (made to fill exactly the allotted space between margins) by hand. After printing, the letters were replaced in alphabetical order by hand for reuse. The new machines were operated by a keyboard which selected a matrix for the correct letter from a channel in the magazine; the line of text was automatically justified (made to fill the line exactly by adjusting the space between words); the line of lead type was cast; and the matrices were automatically returned to the correct channels, thus saving the need for the lengthy process of manual distribution. The first Linotype machines were introduced at the New York Tribune in 1886 and in Britain at the Newcastle Chronicle in 1889. By 1895 every publisher in Fleet Street (then the centre of London newspaper publishing) was using the new machines. Linotype keyboard operators could set copy six times faster than the hand compositor. Electricity, introduced in 1884, was also a spur to the printing industry, as were machines that could not only print but could also cut, fold, and bind together newspapers of any size.

The content of newspapers was also transformed by the speeding up of communication, which allowed news to be gathered instantly from distant cities via the telephone or even from foreign countries through the seabed cables laid between Dover, England, and Calais, France, in 1851 and across the Atlantic in 1866. In 1815, when the mounted courier and the packet boat represented the chief means of getting news, it ordinarily took four days before news of an event as near as Brussels could be reported in London. The railway and other improvements in communications, such as the telegraph, revolutionized the newsman’s conception of time and space. The railway networks not only moved reporters rapidly to and from their destinations but also helped to distribute newspapers, thus making them a more urgent and attractive commodity. Rapid and widespread delivery, especially in Britain and France, gave the larger newspapers based in capital cities a national status.

Foundations of modern journalism

The creation of new industrial occupations in society as a whole was reported by a new set of newspapermen who had far more specific jobs than their 18th-century predecessors. Earlier journalists might write, edit, and print each copy of the paper by themselves. Even in the 19th century, James Gordon Bennett handled nearly every aspect of publishing a daily newspaper when he founded the New York Herald in 1835. With the expansion of newspapers, full-time reporters, whose job was to go and get the news, were recruited, and they replaced many occasional correspondents, although there was always room for the stringer, a part-time reporter based in a small town or a remote region. William Howard Russell, a reporter for the London Times during the Crimean War (1853–56), became famous as one of the first war correspondents, and his writings inspired Florence Nightingale to take up her mission to the Crimea. More than 150 war correspondents reported on the American Civil War (1861–65). The reporter could become as celebrated as the soldier, and vigilant reporting could perhaps prevent some of the atrocities perpetrated in wartime. In peacetime the fearless on-the-spot reporter hoping to “scoop” rival papers for a big story also became a folk hero, and his byline (the name or nom de plume published with the article) could become better known than that of the editor.

The expense of employing a large team of reporters, some of whom could be out of the office for months, proved impossible for smaller papers, thus paving the way for the news agency. The French businessman Charles Havas had begun this development in 1835 by turning a translation company into an agency offering the French press translated items from the chief European papers. His carrier-pigeon service between London, Paris, and Brussels followed, turning the company into an international concern that sold news items and that, eventually, also dealt in advertising space. Paul Julius Reuter, a former Havas employee, was among the first to exploit the new telegraphic cable lines in Germany, but his real success came in London, where he set up shop in 1851 as a supplier of overseas commercial information. Expansion soon led to the creation of the Reuters service of foreign telegrams to the press, an organization that grew with the spread of the British Empire to cover a large part of the world. In the United States, meanwhile, a very different type of agency—the newspaper cooperative—had arisen. Six New York City papers were the founding members; they suspended their traditional rivalries to share the cost of reporting the war with Mexico (1846–48) by establishing the New York Associated Press agency. Between 1870 and 1934, a series of agency treaties divided the world into exclusive territories for each major agency, but thereafter freedom of international operation was reinstated. The press agencies ensured a continuous supply of international “spot news”—i.e., the bare facts about events as they occur—and raised standards of objective news reporting. For their feature pages, American newspaper editors came to rely on the feature syndicates, which supplied ready-to-use material that could range from medical columns and book reviews to astrological forecasts and crossword puzzles.

Growth of the newspaper business in the English-speaking world

Advances in newspaper production matched a quickening in the pace of life for the millions of people who read newspapers in the late 19th century. The railways, which transported newspapers rapidly from town to town, contributed to the breakdown of rural isolation, while the steamship and the telegraph brought nations closer together. Mass-produced newspapers with a broad appeal became available for the newly literate or semiliterate industrial worker. Circulations of some popular papers were climbing toward one million by the end of the century, and newspaper publishing and advertising had become profitable and influential commercial enterprises.

The United States

The movement toward a popular and politically independent press was spearheaded in the United States, where many potential readers were refugees from European political and religious persecution. The teeming immigrant population of New York City was the seedbed for several of the newspapers that were to shape the character of modern journalism. In 1835 the New York Herald was founded as the first American newspaper to proclaim and to maintain complete political independence. Its publisher, James Gordon Bennett, announced that the Herald would endeavour to record news, “with comments suitable, just, independent, fearless and good-tempered,” while supporting no political party. The popularity of the Herald, with its exciting amalgam of news, views, and social commentary presented in brief and frequently sensational articles, was soon represented by a print run of more than 30,000 copies. New York’s appetite for news was a substantial one, and in 1841 Horace Greeley introduced the New York Tribune. Whereas Bennett was an entertainer, Greeley was a campaigner, the first of the many idealists and crusaders who were to occupy American newspaper offices. Many pieces in the Tribune reflected the proprietor’s fierce opposition to slavery and ultimately influenced opinion well beyond the bounds of New York City. In the rough-and-ready frontier territories of the Midwest, crude sensationalism was a characteristic of the new popular press under editors such as Wilbur F. Storey of the Chicago Times (founded 1854), while painstaking investigation and exposure of political corruption was used by William Rockhill Nelson of the Kansas City Star (1880) as new evidence of the independence of the press. In the South newspapers helped in rebuilding civic consciousness after the desolation of the Civil War through the efforts of men like Henry W. Grady at the Atlanta Constitution (after 1880) in Georgia and Henry Watterson at the Louisville Courier-Journal in Kentucky (after 1868).

The character of a newspaper could change radically under a new owner or editor. In New York City, an individual stamp was put on the influential Evening Post by its scholarly editor, Parke Godwin. The New York Sun had started life in 1833 as the first of the inexpensive popular papers known as the “penny press,” with its founder, Benjamin H. Day, successfully exploiting a vein of demand for inconsequential “human-interest” stories. Later, under Charles A. Dana (after 1868), the Sun rose in style and prominence. The New York Times (1851), long in the shadow of the more vigorous Herald and Tribune, struck an important and lasting blow for the independence of the press by exposing an attempted bribe of the Times’ editor by Tammany Hall politician William Magear (“Boss”) Tweed; the reported $5 million sum offered and rejected was an ample indication of the growing power of the press.

Great Britain

In Europe, Britain alone could boast the presence of an independent press in the first half of the 19th century. The London Times demonstrated the value of journalistic objectivity and the need to criticize governments if hard-won rights were to be preserved. Under the consistent management of John Walter II and John Walter III, son and grandson of the founder, and with enlightened editorial control from outstanding journalists such as Thomas Barnes and John Thaddeus Delane, The Times became a model for most serious British newspapers. In 1819 its reporting of the Peterloo Massacre by government troops at a political rally in Manchester was uncompromising; it campaigned for Parliamentary reform (achieved in 1832) and exposed the horrors of the Crimean War. From a technical standpoint The Times led the way in the introduction of advanced printing machinery and provided a fast and reliable news service as early as the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1836 the Stamp Tax was reduced to one penny, and in 1855 it was abolished entirely. This gradual relaxation of an impost on newspapers produced higher circulations for existing newspapers and encouraged the publication of new titles. Many were cheap, lurid crime sheets that disappeared as fast as they emerged. One exception was the sensational Sunday paper, the News of the World (1843), which attracted more readers than any other Sunday paper in Britain for more than a century. More characteristic of the age was the Daily Telegraph (1855), a penny paper, but one that competed directly with The Times by covering serious news stories and including thoughtful editorial comment on four sides of print, but at a quarter of the price of the fourpenny Times.

Continental Europe and other countries

During much of the 19th century, fear of popular insurgence led the European monarchies to keep a watchful eye on the newspaper presses. At the same time, prior to the unification of the modern states of Germany and Italy, newspapers covering national affairs were of limited interest. The first signs of a popular press appeared with the founding in Paris of La Presse (1836) by Émile de Girardin, who might be called one of the first press barons. He introduced new features and serials to raise circulation as high as 20,000 and thus to enable him to lower the price of his newspapers. A prominent contemporary of Girardin was Louis-Désiré Véron, who founded the Revue de Paris (1829) and revived the liberal daily Le Constitutionnel (1835). Aspiring French authors could gain publicity for their literary talents in these papers, especially when the Tanguy Law (1850) made it compulsory for them to sign the articles they wrote. But this literary slant to French newspapers, which persists to some degree in the modern era, could not disguise their paucity of hard news.

Disunity and political censorship continued to restrict the German press, although one independent daily, the Allgemeine Zeitung (Tübingen, 1798), managed to achieve wide influence. Farther north in Sweden, despite the freedom of speech granted to the press in 1766, the country’s first notable newspaper, the Aftonbladet (Swedish: “Evening Press,” founded by political and social reformist Lars Johan Hierta), was not begun until 1830.

Toward the middle of the century, censorship was abolished or relaxed in many other countries, including Switzerland (1848) and Denmark (1849). The new freedoms, together with the spread of literacy, gave birth to important newspapers, many of which still survive, including Le Figaro (Paris, 1854, daily from 1866), Frankfurter Zeitung (1856, renamed Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Le Peuple (Brussels, date unknown), and the Corriere della Sera (Milan, 1876). In Spain and Portugal, censorship continued to prevent the development of true journalistic independence; any periods of comparative freedom were quickly followed by the reimposition of controls. In Russia strict censorship remained in force under the tsars, apart from a single decade (1855–65) of tolerance under Alexander II, when many new papers appeared. But limitations on publication were reimposed when it was found that greater freedom allowed radical ideas to be voiced, and the Russian press, like that in much of Europe, was forced to concentrate on literary rather than journalistic achievements.

The arrival of the U.S. naval officer Matthew Perry in Japan in 1853 was announced to the public in kawara-bans, which continued to be published for some years, though they began to be superseded by English-language newspapers. The first of these, the Nagasaki Shipping List and Advertiser (1861), was followed in the next five years by numerous periodicals, mainly translations produced by the shogunate Office for Reviewing Barbarian Papers. The office translated items from newspapers of China, Hong Kong, and the United States, as did Joseph Heko, a naturalized U.S. citizen and an interpreter at the American Embassy, in his monthly Kaigai shimbun (“Overseas Newspaper,” 1865–66). The news items were therefore out of date, of little concern to the average Japanese, and bore too great a resemblance to official announcements to be regarded as true newspapers. In 1867, however, the overthrow of the shogunate and the restoration of the Meiji led to the publication of more than a dozen newspapers concerned with domestic issues. Mainly issued by shogunate sympathizers, they included the Koko shimbun, whose publisher, the dramatist and educator Fukuchi Genichiro, had studied Western newspapers on his official travels abroad for the Japanese government (and who was later, in 1874, to preside over the Nichi-Nichi shimbun, a paper that was closer to Western newspapers in style). The government soon suppressed these publications and promulgated the Newspaper Ordinance, which, in its 1871 version, decreed that the contents of a newspaper should always be “in the interest of governing the nation,” a principle that was already anathema to many European and North American publishers.

Arrests of journalists and the suppression of newspapers were common in the 1870s, but several giants of contemporary Japanese journalism nevertheless originated during the decade. In 1870 the Yokohama Mainichi, the first daily in Japan, was started; it was also one of the first to use lead type. Two years later the Tokyo Nichi-Nichi appeared as one of the first truly modern Japanese newspapers, although it regarded itself as virtually an official gazette. The Yomiuri shimbun, one of the three leading national dailies in modern Japan, was founded in Tokyo in 1874, and it soon gained a reputation as a “literary” newspaper. The other two principal papers—the Ōsaka Nippo (1876) and the Ōsaka Asahi (1879)—were to become, respectively, the Ōsaka Mainichi and the Asahi shimbun (created in the early 1940s by a merger with the Tokyo Asahi, founded in 1888). They are associated with two of the fathers of modern Japanese newspaper publishing, Murayama Ryuhei (Asahi) and Motoyama Hikochi (Mainichi). Motoyama took full control of the Mainichi in 1903 and three years later added the Tokyo Nichi-Nichi to his publishing empire.

In other parts of the world a familiar cycle took place, with prohibition or strict censorship gradually giving way to the demand for a free press, although colonial governments long exercised an especially tight control on political publications. Canada had its first newspapers as early as the 18th century. These developed regionally and catered to both English and French speakers in Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto. Fine standards of journalism were later set by the Winnipeg Free Press (founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1872).

Parts of India also had an early service, with newsletters being circulated from the 16th century. Under British rule, both English- and vernacular-language papers flourished—the latter under government control—and enviable standards were set by The Times of India (1838, formerly the Bombay Times) and The Hindu (1878).

Several Australian titles date to the early years of settlement, notably the Sydney Morning Herald (1831), the Melbourne Argus (1846), and The Age (1854). Full censorship lasted until 1824 and the stamp tax until 1830, but one title, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, was being published as early as 1803. The first issue of New Zealand’s earliest newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette, was printed by emigrants even before their departure from London. The second issue awaited the installation of printing facilities in Wellington in 1840, when large-scale colonization was begun, but in the same year the New Zealand Advertiser was added to the list. The Taranaki Herald began publication in 1852.

In South Africa a press law was passed in 1828 to secure a modicum of publishing freedom, mainly through the efforts of the editor of the country’s first paper, the South African Commercial Advertiser. Later papers, such as the Cape Argus (1857), were often tied to commercial and mining interests at first, but later their editors began to insist on freer commentary. South Africa’s first Bantu-language newspaper, Imvo Zabantsundu (“African Opinion”), was founded and edited by John Tengo Jabavu (father of Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu) in 1884. For much of South Africa’s history, however, the racially divided nature of the country worked against the tenets of press freedom; even in modern times, 20th-century newspapers published blacked-out articles or blank pages until apartheid came to an end. Similar restrictions affected publishers in many other African and Asian countries, in eastern Europe, and in Latin America, although the political complexion of the various regimes differed.

Era of the popular press

In the industrial era, technological advances were routinely appropriated by the newspaper industry to broaden the geographic reach of a paper’s coverage, streamline newsgathering efforts, or speed the production and delivery of newspapers. Ottmar Mergenthaler’s introduction of the Linotype machine in 1886—first in the United States, then in Britain and other industrialized countries—allowed existing newspapers to increase substantially their production and circulation. The change also spurred the launch of new papers in an increasingly competitive business. In the battle to win more readers, U.S. newspapers set new standards of sensationalism—and frequently announced new sales records—with the birth of the ruthless “yellow” journalism (an expression derived from a cartoon character called the “Yellow Kid,” whose creator, Richard F. Outcault, was at the centre of the competition between American newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer). In Britain the print runs of papers such as The Times and the Daily Telegraph quickly reached the 100,000 mark in the second half of the 19th century. Newspapers were becoming part of mass-market industry, and in so doing they were shaking off many of their former ties with the literary world. This was evidenced in the revolutionary 1890s by the emergence of the “press baron,” a businessman who owned a chain of several newspapers, by the increasing importance of advertising revenue, and by the use of unorthodox methods of winning more readers.

The United States

The number of American newspaper titles more than doubled between 1880 and 1900, from 850 to nearly 2,000. In addition to the weekly newspaper serving the smaller community, every major city had its own daily newspaper, and the metropolis had become the site of circulation battles between several titles. In New York City the newspaper business was shaken up by the arrival of Joseph Pulitzer, who is often credited with changing the course of American journalism. An immigrant from Hungary, Pulitzer had proved his ability in St. Louis, Missouri, where he had bought and merged two local papers, the Post and the Dispatch. In New York City Pulitzer bought the failing New York World and in three years raised its circulation from 15,000 to 250,000, at that time the highest figure achieved by any newspaper in the world. With a series of stunts and campaigns, Pulitzer revitalized the established formulas of sensationalism and idealism, taking one step further the qualities of editorial independence and exciting journalism that had been introduced to an earlier generation of New Yorkers by Bennett’s Herald and Greeley’s Tribune (see above).

Whereas Pulitzer was never afraid to unearth public wrongdoing and to crusade against it, the next press baron to influence New York City newspapers, William Randolph Hearst, was prepared to go to much further extremes in creating a headline story. Like Pulitzer, Hearst had learned about newspaper proprietorship in the brash, tough frontier West. His San Francisco Examiner (from 1880) had gained a reputation for exposing and cleaning up political corruption. By the time he came to New York City in 1895, however, Hearst was interested in circulation-building sensation at any price, even if it meant dressing up complete fabrications as news. This approach was revealed all too clearly in 1898, when Hearst’s Morning Journal was challenging Pulitzer’s World in the New York circulation battle. The Journal published exaggerated stories and editorials about the political tensions between the United States and Spain that stirred the country to a pitch of hysteria. Eventually, war—over Cuba—was triggered by the sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana harbour, but Hearst nevertheless claimed credit for the war in a banner headline: “How Do You Like the Journal’s War?” Hearst is reported to have cabled his illustrator in Cuba, demanding pictures of atrocities for the Journal. The illustrator found no atrocities to illustrate and informed Hearst, who replied, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” Alarmist headlines and attention-grabbing campaigns were only one of the tactics introduced by Hearst. Equally important in the sensationalist yellow journalism of the era were vivid pictorial designs—photographs, cartoons, graphic illustrations—and the new Sunday supplements, which focused on human-interest stories and comic strips.

It was inevitable that some newspapers, and especially those that refrained from irresponsible tactics, would suffer circulation losses. One of these was The New York Times, which only recovered after it was acquired in 1896 by newspaper investor Adolph S. Ochs, who promoted responsible journalism and reestablished The New York Times as the city’s leading serious journal. The paper’s slogans, “All the news that’s fit to print” and “It will not soil the breakfast cloth,” indicated Ochs’s commitment to fair-minded news reporting.

By 1900 there were half a dozen well-known newspaper barons in the United States. Hearst, whose collections at one time ran to 42 papers, was the most acquisitive of the early owners. Another early chain-builder was Edward Scripps, who began purchasing newspapers in 1878. Scripps bought small, financially insecure newspapers and set them on their feet by installing capable young editors, who were given a share of the profits as an incentive to improve circulation. The editors were always urged “to serve that class of people and only that class of people from whom you cannot even hope to derive any other income than the one cent a day that they pay for your newspaper.” Scripps wanted his papers to be of genuine service to the public, and though he succeeded in making money from them his motive was never exclusively profit. But the commercial advantage of owning newspaper chains soon became obvious, as it allowed newsprint to be bought on favourable terms and syndicated articles to be used to the fullest. Scripps’s methods were adopted by his rivals and by newspaper proprietors in other countries as the idea of chain ownership spread. Inevitably, the profitable newspapers attracted outside investors whose motives were commercial, not journalistic. This new type of proprietor was exemplified by Frank A. Munsey, who bought and merged many newspapers between 1916 and 1924, including the Sun and the Herald in New York City. In describing Munsey and others like him, the American author and editor William Allen White wrote that he possessed “the talent of a meat packer, the morals of a money changer, and the manners of an undertaker.”

Commercial consolidation into larger publishing groups continued immediately after World War I, when the struggle for circulation intensified. First published in 1919, the New York Daily News was written to a ruthless recipe of sex and sensationalism by Joseph Medill Patterson, and it sparked off a war with Hearst’s Daily Mirror and Bernarr Macfadden’s Daily Graphic, both launched in 1924. The Graphic closed in 1932, and the Mirror ceased publication in 1963, selling many of its feature columns and comics to the Daily News, which underwent several ownership changes before being bought by Mortimer B. Zuckerman in 1993. Takeovers often led to title mergers or the complete disappearance of titles. In 1931 the New York Morning, Evening, and Sunday World titles were bought by the Scripps-Howard chain; the morning and Sunday editions were dropped, and the Evening World was merged with the New York Evening Telegram, an action that suited Americans’ preference for afternoon papers at that time. Newspapers with extensive circulations could command the attention of the larger advertisers, and this reinforced the disappearance of smaller titles in favour of a few high-circulation papers.

One outcome of the new ownership pattern was the gradual disappearance of the old press baron, who, as editor-proprietor, had tended to combine the roles of professional editor and management executive. Even the editor was to suffer a loss of personal impact as fame was increasingly won by columnists—men and women who were given regular columns to express forceful points of view or divulge society secrets. Among the most important political columnists of the 1920s were David Lawrence of the United States News, Frank Kent of the Baltimore Sun, Mark Sullivan of the New York Herald-Tribune, and Walter Lippmann of the New York World. Such writers could gain considerable national followings when their columns or articles were syndicated by major chains.

Great Britain

The British press was slower to emerge as a popular, sensational medium, but a major turning point came in 1855 when the stamp tax was abolished. This was preceded in 1853 by the abolition of the duty on advertisements, and the more liberal climate exposed a remarkable national appetite for newspapers of all kinds. The abolition of taxes and duties, including that on paper in 1861, brought down the prices of newspapers, and this alone was enough to create what were, for the time, very high circulations. By 1861 sales of the Daily Telegraph had risen to a daily average of 130,000, double that of The Times. Abolition of the tax on paper was said to have brought an additional £12,000 a year to the Telegraph. The Telegraph’s daily circulation exceeded 240,000 by 1877, then the highest in the world. The Telegraph, however, differed greatly from the more colourful New York papers. It was a worthy newspaper, more than half of it being taken up with reports of proceedings in Parliament, but its readers and those of The Times came almost exclusively from the growing mercantile middle class, for whom the two papers provided the writings of many of the best authors of the day at a comfortably affordable price. Journalistic independence was usually upheld, but as the party political hostility between William Ewart Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli grew sharper, each paper became more partisan, a development that in turn stimulated sales.

Later in the century the British press began to adapt to the demand for less exacting reading matter. In 1888 the halfpenny evening Star was launched by the Irish nationalist politician T.P. O’Connor. Aiming at a wider public than any previous newspaper, the Star incorporated short, lively news items of human interest in a bold, attractive display. The new paper also gave good racing tips, thus endearing it to a group of men who have always contributed substantially to the circulation of what are known in the United Kingdom as the “populars.” Another contemporary evening paper, the Pall Mall Gazette, adopted American tactics for some of its crusades. In a series of articles entitled The Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon, W.T. Stead exposed the prostitution of young girls in London by himself procuring one. (Indeed as a result he served a term in jail.) This early example of investigative journalism—in which the reporter creates hard news stories by investigating (sometimes clandestinely and by direct experience from inside) illegal or scandalous activities—led to the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1885, which improved protection of minors. It also highlighted the power of the press to define what is unacceptable to society.

At the turn of the century, popular journalism came into its own in Britain with the rise of Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), who can be called the first of the British press barons both for his title and for his enduring influence on the press. During his lifetime he owned, at various times, the Daily Mail, the Mirror, The Times, and the Observer. As his first effort he launched a cheap weekly magazine in 1888, when he was only age 23. Using short sentences, short paragraphs, and short articles, the new style of editing was aimed at attracting a large following among those who had learned to read as a result of the 1870 Education Act that made school compulsory for all British children. In 1894 Harmsworth bought the Evening News, and by combining his editing style with some of the methods of American yellow journalism, he quadrupled its circulation within a year. In 1896 came Harmsworth’s main innovation, the Daily Mail, which within three years was selling more than 500,000 copies a day. This was more than twice the figure reached by any competing paper up to that time. The Daily Mail went on to sell more than one million copies a day during the South African (Boer) War (1899–1902).

As “A Penny Paper for One Halfpenny” the Daily Mail was sold to the reader at a low price only made possible by the paper’s lucrative revenue from advertising. It was the first British paper to be based deliberately on advertising revenue rather than on sales revenue and the first to publish circulation figures audited independently by a chartered accountant. These figures gave advertisers evidence that the Daily Mail was reaching the public in sufficient numbers to warrant increasingly expensive advertising space. Another Mail slogan, “The Busy Man’s Daily Journal,” emphasized the snappy editorial style that followed the Harmsworth dictum of “Explain, simplify, clarify.” This approach guided the new type of journalists known as subeditors, whose job was to rewrite stories in the “house” style, to compose headlines, and, if necessary, to add a little seasoning to the original story.

Another Harmsworth innovation was the tabloid newspaper, which was to revolutionize the popular press in the 20th century. The term tabloid was coined by Harmsworth when he designed and edited an experimental issue of the New York World, produced for New Year’s Day, 1900. The tabloid halved the size of the newspaper page, which allowed easier handling by the reader, but it also suited the new, curtailed size of articles and the more numerous pages required per issue. In the long run, however, the term tabloid has come to define the popular newspaper more in style than in physical characteristics. The first successful tabloid was Harmsworth’s Daily Mirror (1903). Originally launched as a newspaper for “gentlewomen,” the Mirror had been a failure, but the tabloid format, together with a halfpenny cover price and numerous photographs, made the new picture paper an immediate success, with circulation running at more than one million copies by 1914. Lord Northcliffe sold the Mirror to his brother Lord Rothermere in 1913. Meanwhile, the equally successful tabloid Daily Sketch had been begun in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton.

Like the American press barons, Northcliffe constantly intervened in the production of his newspapers, sending orders under his preferred appellation of “Chief” to the editors not only of the Mail and the Mirror but also of The Times (from 1908) and the Observer (from 1905), both of which he owned until his death in 1922. His control over newspaper content was never more apparent than during World War I, when the British Official Press Bureau was set up to control the amount of war information available to the public through the newspapers. Though accepting that a certain degree of censorship was necessary to conceal military intelligence from the enemy, Northcliffe nevertheless boldly defied the bureau over its cover-up of an ammunition shortage. Such defiance confirmed the independence of the press from government, but the influence of proprietors was itself to become an important issue in press freedom. This was typified after World War I by the intensive campaign for Empire Free Trade in Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express. The preservation of the British Empire was the guiding passion of Max Aitken, who had been raised to the peerage as Lord Beaverbrook in 1917. A Canadian-born journalist who took the Express into second place in national circulation behind the Daily Mirror, Beaverbrook continued to thrust his viewpoint on the editors of his papers for many years, although his campaigns for free trade within the empire and, after World War II, commonwealth trade preference were unsuccessful. Through the Daily Express, the Sunday Express (started in 1918), and the London Evening Standard (acquired 1923), Beaverbrook’s opposition to Britain’s attempts to join the European Economic Community (EEC; later the European Community, which became the primary component of the European Union), was given a regular airing. Beaverbrook admitted to the first Royal Commission on the Press that if an editor took a divergent view on, for example, the empire, he would be “talked out of it.” So talented was Beaverbrook as a publisher and journalist that the Express newspapers gained and kept many readers for life, even though it is doubtful whether the issues of empire and EEC membership were of passionate concern to them.

The circulation “war of the tabs” that broke out in New York City in the 1920s was copied in Britain in the 1930s, bringing with it numerous circulation-boosting stunts. Prizes for readers had been introduced as early as the 1890s, when Harmsworth offered a pound sterling per week for life for the reader who could guess the value of gold in the Bank of England on a given day. In the 1920s one paper offered free insurance to subscribers, but this soon proved too costly to maintain. In 1930 the Daily Herald offered gifts to woo new readers. Although they were condemned by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association (later known as the Newspaper Publishers Association), gift schemes proliferated among other newspapers, with the Herald eventually achieving a circulation of two million, the highest in the world. Many of the new readers were stolen from other papers—the Daily Mirror saw its figure drop from more than one million to 700,000 by 1934—but newspapers in general acquired 1.5 million new readers, so that by the end of the decade there was a national newspaper aimed at every socioeconomic class. The Daily Mirror was revived by its editor, Harry Bartholomew, to become a true working-class paper with a radical political voice, although the winning of new readers—circulation eventually topped four million—was mostly due to the shameless use of the techniques of yellow journalism.

The modern era

After World War II, radical changes in newspaper production in particular and mass communication in general occurred on a par with those brought by the Industrial Revolution. Electronic and communications technology have continued to revolutionize the ways in which newspapers are written, edited, and printed, while radio, television, and the Internet have developed into serious competitors as sources of news, official information, and entertainment—and as vehicles for advertising.

Technological developments

Computers and telecommunications transformed the production process for the modern newspaper. They also led to changes in the quality of the newspaper itself, but their real impact was on the finances of the newspaper industry and on the relevance of the traditional print workers. One of the first signs of technology’s potential for change came in the 1930s, when Walter Morey developed the Teletypesetter (first demonstrated in 1928). This machine was an improvement on the telegraph, which was widely used by reporters in the field and by the wire services, such as Reuters and Associated Press, to send news items in draft form to editorial offices miles away. With the Teletypesetter, the impulses sent over the wire included encoded instructions to Linotype machines. The machines could then decode the instructions and automatically prepare whole pages ready for printing. It was therefore envisaged that the reporter would have the facility for “direct input” into the printing room, which would eliminate the need for retyping by a Linotype operator and thus save newspapers both time and money.

But direct input had to await the development of sophisticated computers and computer programs, which did not materialize until after World War II. In 1946 the first techniques of photocomposition were developed. With this method of typesetting, the images of pages are prepared for the printer photographically, as on a photocopier, instead of in lines of metal type. The new method was introduced gradually in newspapers, where the Linotype machines had worked well enough for more than half a century and where union opposition to the new technology was deeply entrenched. Technological advances were accelerated in the 1970s, especially through the introduction of computers and computer programs that were tailor-made for the newspaper publisher. Many newspaper companies replaced their 19th-century printing systems with the new technology almost overnight.

In a modern newspaper office each journalist has a desktop terminal or computer—i.e., a keyboard and monitor connected to the main computer. The monitor shows the current article or, in the case of a copy editor, the whole of the page being composed from various articles and pictures. While writing, the reporter can retrieve information stored in the computer, such as any previous articles on the same subject, which can be displayed on the screen alongside the new copy. This split-screen technology also allows the copy editor to move copy around the screen on special page-layout terminals until the copy fits the page. Once it is ready, a push of a button sends the complete page to the main computer for eventual transformation into camera-ready composition. From there, a negative image of the page is captured on film and, depending on the type of press used, typically etched onto a printing plate.

By this direct-input process the production of a page of news is accelerated. But the new technology can serve other production purposes. On some papers it is possible for an advertiser to send copy via a facsimile machine, an Intranet system, or the Internet to the newspaper office, where a computer automatically finds a suitable space for it and transmits it to the copy editor’s screen. The reporter in the field, equipped with a portable terminal, can also input a story to the newspaper’s computer directly and can gain access to the computer’s library of information in the same way. If necessary, the editor can discuss the article with the reporter over the telephone or via e-mail (electronic mail) as they both look at it on their screens. Similarly, items from press agencies can be located instantly; these can be transmitted to the computer terminal via cables or over the air by satellite, enabling news to reach the other side of the world within minutes. The electronic transmission of whole pages of news between remote locations also means that the printing plant does not have to be situated near the editorial offices. This has decreased real estate or rental costs for many urban newspapers, and it has also made possible the printing of simultaneous editions of the same newspaper in different cities and even on different continents, an advantage first exploited by the British-based Financial Times and the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal.

Financial developments

The introduction of new technology in the latter part of the 20th century brought forth strong resistance from the unions of printing workers, which were traditionally among the most powerful labour unions. At first the operators of the obsolete Linotype machines were “brought upstairs” from the hot-metal shop to the newspaper offices, where they were retrained to compose copy on computer keyboards. But eventually even this function was no longer necessary as computers became more sophisticated, featuring word processing for journalists, graphics programs for illustrators, and editing programs designed specifically for newspaper editors. As the computer increasingly streamlined the basic functions of newspaper production, the proprietor was able to replace highly skilled production workers with less qualified and lower-paid staffs to handle the more routine jobs such as typing.

Even before the introduction of the Linotype machine, however, many unions in the newspaper industry had worked hard to protect the jobs and benefits of union labourers. The type compositors, together with the other craftsmen involved in printing, were well paid for their skills and for the night shifts they were obliged to work on morning papers. Overstaffing became common in newspaper printing departments when the unions laid down strict rules on the demarcation of labour (jobs that would be done only by particular employees), and working hours and conditions were precisely defined. Labour strikes represented a powerful weapon against the newspaper proprietor, since the loss of even one day’s circulation might drive the reader to another paper. It was also feared that the regular reader might find that he did not miss his newspaper enough to start buying it again after the strike, especially when radio and television made news so readily available.

In the 1960s, increased competition from television news programming and a climate of rising production costs—especially, some believe, those driven by powerful labour unions—forced many newspapers to consolidate or cease publication. In New York City, prolonged strikes by newspaper unions (1962–63) led to the closure of several papers by the end of the decade.

Corporate decisions were increasingly made at levels well above that of the newspaper’s manager; increasingly, the company owning the newspaper was a conglomerate with various industrial interests. When this was the case, it was often not committed to maintaining an unprofitable title, regardless of the newspaper’s history and tradition or its number of loyal readers. High circulation levels meant nothing if the paper did not attract advertising revenue and if inflated production costs prevented it from making any sort of profit. However, some well-known newspapers have been supported financially from the profits made by other parts of the conglomerate while others, such as The New York Times and the Washington Post, have combined family stakes in the business with corporate ownership. Owning a venerable title can be a mark of prestige for a business enterprise, and there are still entrepreneurs who hope to emulate the press barons of earlier years—especially in Britain, where a high percentage of newspaper proprietors have been raised to the peerage. It is not unusual, however, for prestigious papers to change ownership fairly frequently or experience bankruptcies and other management failures.

Maturation of newspaper markets

Despite the challenges presented by competing mass media such as radio, television, and Internet news sites, many newspapers, both large and small, have remained attractive to readers and have been run profitably.

The emergence of national newspapers

Television news broadcasts and magazines have long been directed toward national audiences, but only in the late 20th century did some newspapers, such as the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, begin to move beyond their metropolitan or regional markets, as electronic publishing technology fostered the growth of national daily newspapers. Once the technology became available to them, publishers sought ways to maximize the additional advertising revenue that could result from national distribution. In the United States, the The Wall Street Journal had long occupied the top spot as the country’s largest nationally circulated daily paper. In 1982 the Gannett Co., Inc. used emerging technology to launch a full-color national daily general-interest newspaper, USA Today, in the United States. By 2002 USA Today’s annual circulation topped two million, surpassing that of The Wall Street Journal. Defenders of the Journal noted, however, that it retained the largest subscription base among print and online subscribers, while a certain portion of USA Today’s circulation base was achieved by distributing free newspapers. In the United Kingdom, a short-lived newspaper akin to USA Today was launched in 1986 by publisher Eddie Shah. Entitled Today, it was the first national British paper produced entirely with the new technology and without cooperation from the traditional print unions. The paper was purchased in 1987 by Rupert Murdoch, who closed it in 1995. Before the end of the 20th century, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal were joined by a third national newspaper, The New York Times, which expanded its reach in 1998 by offering subscriptions in most U.S. cities. By the middle of the next decade, however, subscribers to its daily newspaper amounted to roughly half the number receiving either USA Today or The Wall Street Journal.

Advertising

Newspapers have retained their importance as vehicles for advertising—including display ads as well as classified advertisements. Even after classified advertising became available on the Internet, local papers retained a significant share of classified ads, especially in the categories of job recruitment and real estate. In smaller and rural communities, regional and local papers have remained essential for small businesses wishing to advertise.

Although newspapers had traditionally counted on the income from subscriptions and newsstand purchases, it became increasingly evident that advertising was a newspaper’s primary source of profit. One of the main developments of the 1970s and ’80s was the spread of free newspapers (known in the United Kingdom as free sheets), which are delivered door-to-door or distributed in public places. Many free newspapers are printed by smaller newspaper enterprises and are entirely financed by advertising revenue. In the early 21st century, large metropolitan newspaper publishers began experimenting with free tabloid versions of their daily papers; their goal was to build brand recognition among younger readers who were less likely to purchase or subscribe to traditional newspapers. However, by promoting a sense that one need not pay for news, the free papers and free news websites joined radio and television in posing a threat to the existence of paid-subscription newspapers. Although The Wall Street Journal began charging for its online content in 1996, most newspaper publishers thought that free access to the online versions of their papers would yield strong advertising income and help build the subscription base for their print-edition papers. Even 10 years later, as publishers increasingly saw the need to charge for online access, The Wall Street Journal remained the only American newspaper not offering free viewing of some—if not most—of its daily news.

Contemporary challenges

Besides working to retain their share of advertising, newspapers must compete for the attention of the consumer who can get the main points of the news from a variety of sources. Over the decades newspapers have done well to survive amid the proliferation of portable radios, radios in automobiles, cable and satellite-broadcast television channels, Internet news sites, and web logs. Readers may be attracted by the paper’s sports reporting, racing tips, editorials, cartoons, job advertisements, gossip columns, or, ironically, the daily listings of radio and television programming. The modern reader, in fact, is more likely to buy a newspaper to consult a special section than to read it from cover to cover.

Other mass media have nonetheless influenced the style and the substance of newspapers, especially as audiences seek entertainment in tandem with more straightforward news. One social change that newspapers have capitalized upon regards the increase in leisure time in developed countries. To accompany the growth of a diversity of leisure activities such as home improvement, gardening, and food and wine, newspapers have devoted special features to these activities, particularly in their weekend editions. Foreign travel has also become more common, creating a demand for informative articles on popular tourist destinations. Even the sports pages, an essential part of the modern newspaper, have been affected by the changing leisure patterns—there has been an increase in the number of sports of general interest, allowing the expansion of the sports section to cover less popular sports. The economic advantage of covering more leisure activities and interests comes from the ability of newspapers to attract advertising revenue from commercial suppliers of leisure goods and services. In expanding their coverage to include modern leisure interests, newspapers can be seen to reflect the society of which they are a part.

The role of the press

A free press is seen as a central component of a healthy democracy. This freedom does have its limits, however. Some constraints might stem from issues of defamation and national security, and news blackouts or restrictions on information have occurred during military crises. Of even more concern is the growing number of threats made to journalists reporting from areas of political or military tension, where at one time the press card gave the right to independent reporting.

In the developing countries of the Third World, newspapers can play a vital role in disseminating a balanced picture of national affairs and in contributing to the growth of literacy. Repression of independent opinion is common in such countries, however. The freedom of the press is by no means universal even in the industrialized West, despite the defense of such freedom as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19).

In fact, for much of the world’s population, an independent press remains an unattainable goal. The People’s Republic of China, for example, has held the view that Western press freedom is illusory, because a wealthy minority controls what is to be printed, whereas access to the press is truly free in communist countries. Distortion of the truth can be said to arise wherever newspaper ownership approaches monopoly or even, as in some Western countries, if it is controlled by a small number of organizations. New technology—as evidenced by the web log and the Internet news site—does offer escape from this impasse because it makes possible the broad distribution of diverse perspectives. These new communication formats are able to publicize the views of minorities that traditionally have not been heard, but such specialized sources tend to reach very limited audiences, many of which comprise individuals who already agree with the views being presented.

Contemporary journalists are nonetheless intimidated, attacked, and killed for their role as witnesses to political, economic, and social developments wherever they may be in the world. The freedom to collect, disseminate, and publish news is recognized as so vital to human rights that UNESCO established World Press Freedom Day (May 3) in 1997 and began awarding an annual prize named for Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist slain in 1986, who advocated harsh punishments for narcotics traffickers. With support from UNESCO, several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) monitor threats made against journalists and publish reports assessing the status of press freedom around the world.

Censorship and fear of repression are not the only constraints to a free press; the cost of reporting and delivering news can bring significant limitations. While Internet publishing has made possible the affordable delivery of news and opinion, the more traditional business of journalism—television and radio broadcasting or journal and newspaper publishing—remains a costly and, frequently, a limiting factor in the free exchange of information. Such limits on access can occur in dictatorships, developing countries, and wealthy democracies alike.

Above all, the serious newspaper has moved toward providing in-depth detail, analysis, and opinion on many current events. In most countries of the West, the quality of newspaper coverage of business affairs, the arts, and social issues is increasingly important as publishers deal with more sophisticated readers. Even as newspapers adapt to the styles and the interests of an era, they nonetheless represent a forum for thoughtful debate, a medium for creative expression, and a safeguard of the written language.

Magazine publishing

Beginnings in the 17th century

Though there may have been published material similar to a magazine in antiquity, especially perhaps in China, the magazine as it is now known began only after the invention of printing in the West. It had its roots in the spate of pamphlets, broadsides, ballads, chapbooks, and almanacs that printing made possible. Much of the energy that went into these gradually became channeled into publications that appeared regularly and collected a variety of material designed to appeal to particular interests. The magazine thus came to occupy the large middle ground, incapable of sharp definition, between the book and the newspaper.

The earliest magazine appears to have been the German Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen (1663–68; “Edifying Monthly Discussions”), started by Johann Rist, a theologian and poet of Hamburg. Soon after there appeared a group of learned periodicals: the Journal des Sçavans (later Journal des Savants; 1665), started in France by the author Denis de Sallo; the Philosophical Transactions (1665) of the Royal Society in England; and the Giornale de’ letterati (1668), published in Italy and issued by the scholar and ecclesiastic Francesco Nazzari. A similar journal was started in Germany a little later, the Acta eruditorum Lipsiensium (Leipzig; 1682); and mention may also be made of the exile-French Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (1684), published by the philosopher Pierre Bayle mainly in Holland to escape censorship. These sprang from the revival of learning, the need to review its fruits, and the wish to diffuse its spirit as widely as possible.

The learned journals summarized important new books, but there were as yet no literary reviews. Book advertisements, by about 1650 a regular feature of the newssheets, sometimes had brief comments added, and regular catalogs began to appear, such as the English quarterly Mercurius librarius, or A Catalogue of Books (1668–70). But in the 17th century the only periodicals devoted to books were short-lived: the Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious (1682–83), which offered some critical notes on books, and the Universal Historical Bibliothèque (January–March 1686). The latter invited scholarly contributions and could thus be regarded as the true forerunner of the literary review.

The lighter type of magazine, or “periodical of amusement,” may be dated from 1672, which saw the first appearance of Le Mercure Galant (renamed Mercure de France in 1714). It was founded by the writer Jean Donneau de Vizé and contained court news, anecdotes, and short pieces of verse—a recipe that was to prove endlessly popular and become widely imitated. This was followed in 1688 by a German periodical with an unwieldy title but one that well expressed the intention behind many a subsequent magazine: “Entertaining and Serious, Rational and Unsophisticated Ideas on All Kinds of Agreeable and Useful Books and Subjects.” It was issued in Leipzig by the jurist Christian Thomasius, who made a point of encouraging women readers. England was next in the field, with a penny weekly, the Athenian Gazette (better known later as the Athenian Mercury; 1690–97), run by a London publisher, John Dunton, to resolve “all the most Nice and Curious Questions.” Soon after came the Gentleman’s Journal (1692–94), started by the French-born Peter Anthony Motteux, with a monthly blend of news, prose, and poetry. In 1693, after devoting some experimental numbers of the Athenian Mercury to “the Fair Sex,” Dunton brought out the first magazine specifically for women, the Ladies’ Mercury. Finally, another note, taken up time and again later, was struck by The London Spy (1698–1700), issued by a tavern keeper, Ned Ward, and containing a running narrative of the sights and sounds of London.

Developments in the 18th century

Great Britain

With increasing literacy—especially among women—and a quickening interest in new ideas, the magazine filled out and became better established. In Britain, three early “essay periodicals” had enormous influence: Daniel Defoe’s The Review (1704–13; thrice weekly); Sir Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709–11; thrice weekly), to which Joseph Addison soon contributed; and Addison and Steele’s The Spectator (1711–12, briefly revived in 1714; daily). Though they resembled newspapers in the frequency of their appearance, they were more like magazines in content. The Review introduced the opinion-forming political article on domestic and foreign affairs, while the cultivated essays of The Tatler and The Spectator, designed “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality,” did much to shape the manners and taste of the age. The latter had countless imitators not only in Britain, where there were in addition the Female Tatler (1709–10) and the Female Spectator (1744–46), but also on the Continent and later in America. The Stamp Tax of 1712 had a damping effect, as intended, but magazines proved endlessly resilient, easy to start and easy to fail, then as now.

So far various themes had been tried out; they were first brought together convincingly by the English printer Edward Cave, who began to publish The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1731. It was originally a monthly collection of essays and articles culled from elsewhere, hence the term magazine—the first use of the word in this context. Cave was joined in 1738 by Dr. Johnson, who was later to publish his own Rambler (1750–52); thereafter The Gentleman’s Magazine contained mostly original matter, including parliamentary reports. Rivals and imitators quickly followed, notably the London Magazine (1732–85) and the Scots Magazine (1739–1817; to 1826 published as the Edinburgh Magazine); and, among the increasing number of women’s periodicals, there were a Ladies’ Magazine (1749–53) and a Lady’s Magazine (1770–1832). Their progenitor, however, outlived them all and perished only in 1907.

The literary and political rivalries of the day produced numerous short-lived periodicals, from which the critical review emerged as an established form. Robert Dodsley, a London publisher, started the Museum (1746–47), devoted mainly to books, and Ralph Griffiths, a Nonconformist bookseller, founded The Monthly Review (1749–1845), which had the novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith as a contributor. To oppose the latter on behalf of the Tories and the Church of England, The Critical Review (1756–1817) was started by an Edinburgh printer, Archibald Hamilton, with the novelist Tobias Smollett as its first editor. Book reviews tended to be long and fulsome, with copious quotations; a more astringent note came in only with the founding of the Edinburgh Review in 1802 (see below).

Continental Europe

On the Continent development was similar but was hampered by censorship. French magazines containing new ideas had to appear in exile, such as the philosopher Pierre Bayle’s Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, which was published largely in Holland; some 30 titles were published in Holland up to the time of the French Revolution. Within France, there were the short-lived Spectateur Français (1722–23) and Spectateur Suisse (1723); and Le Pour et le Contre (1733–40; “For and Against”), issued by the Abbé Prévost (author of Manon Lescaut). Of more literary interest were the Gazette Littéraire de l’Europe (1764–84) and La Décade Philosophique, Littéraire et Politique (1794–1804).

In Leipzig the poet and philosopher Johann Christoph Gottsched issued a periodical for women, Die vernünftigen Tadlerinnen (1725–26; “The Rational Woman-Critics”), and the first German literary review, Beiträge zur kritischen Historie der deutschen Sprache (1732–44; “Contributions to the History of the German Language”). German literary movements were connected with the production of new magazines to a greater extent than in Britain. Examples of such vehicles include Friedrich von Schiller’s Horen (1795–97) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Propyläen (1798–1800), the influence of which was often greater than their duration. Of more general and lasting influence was the Allgemeine Literatur-zeitung (1785–1849), founded by Friedrich Justin Bertuch, “the father of the German periodical.”

The first Russian periodical, published by the Academy of Sciences, was a learned journal called “Monthly Works” (1755–64). The first privately published Russian magazine, a critical periodical with essays and translations from the British Spectator, was called “Industrious Bee” and began in 1759. Catherine II used her Vsiakaia Vsiachina (1769–70), also modeled on the Spectator, to attack opponents, among them Nikolay Novikov, whose “Drone” (1769–70) and “Windbag” (1770) were suspended and whose “Painter” (1770–72) escaped only by being dedicated to the Empress.

America

In America the first magazines were published in 1741. In that year appeared Andrew Bradford’s American Magazine, the first publication of its kind in the colonies. It was joined, a mere three days later, by Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine. Both magazines appeared in Philadelphia; neither lasted very long, however—Bradford’s magazine survived only three months and Franklin’s six. Franklin was more widely known for another of his publications, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732–57), which contained maxims and proverbs. Before the end of the 18th century, some 100 magazines had appeared, offering miscellaneous entertainment, uplift, or information, mostly on a very shaky, local, and brief basis. Among the more important were, in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Magazine (1775–76), edited by Thomas Paine, and the American Museum (1787–92) of the bookseller Mathew Carey; the Massachusetts Magazine (1789–96), published in Boston; and the New-York (City) Magazine (1790–97).

The 19th century and the start of mass circulation

General periodicals

Most of the early periodicals were designed for the few who could afford them and can be fairly called “quality” magazines. In the 1830s, however, less expensive magazines, aimed at a wider public, began to appear. At first these magazines emphasized features that promoted improvement, enlightenment, and family entertainment, but, toward the end of the century, they evolved into popular versions that aimed at providing amusement.

The pioneers of the new type of magazine in Britain were Charles Knight, publisher for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, with his weekly Penny Magazine (1832–46) and Penny Cyclopaedia (1833–58); the Chambers brothers, William and Robert, with Chambers’s (Edinburgh) Journal (1832–1956), which reached a circulation of 90,000 in 1845; and teetotaler John Cassell, with his Working Man’s Friend and Family Instructor (1850–53) and the Quiver (1861). Besides popular magazines, many standard works appeared serially, often with illustrations. Typical of family entertainment were Charles Dickens’ Household Words (1850), followed in 1859 by All the Year Round; several similar periodicals such as Good Words (1860); and, for young people, the Boy’s Own Paper (1879) and the Girl’s Own Paper (1880). Germany had its Pfennigmagazin (1833), edited by Johann Jakob Weber, and a family magazine modeled on that of Dickens. One example was the Gartenlaube (1853–1937; “Arbour”), which enjoyed great popular influence and a circulation of 400,000 in the 1870s. There were no national magazines in the United States before about 1850, but two of its best-known early periodicals were the Saturday Evening Post (1821–1969; revived 1971) and Youth’s Companion (1827–1929). The latter, published in Boston, was typically wholesome in content, intended to “warn against the ways of transgression” and to encourage “virtue and piety.”

By the last quarter of the century, largely as a result of compulsory education, the potential market for magazines had greatly increased, and the public was avid for miscellaneous information and light entertainment. The first man in Britain to discover this was George Newnes, who liked snipping out any paragraph that appealed to him. In 1881 he turned his hobby to advantage by publishing a penny magazine, Tit-Bits from all the Most Interesting Books, Periodicals and Contributors in the World, soon shortened to Tit-Bits (in 1968 restyled Titbits). It was a great success and formed the beginning of a publishing empire that was to include Country Life (founded 1897), Wide World Magazine (1898), and, above all, The Strand Magazine (1891–1950), one of the first monthly magazines of light literature with plenty of illustrations. The Strand became enormously popular and is perhaps most famous for its Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Among the early contributors to Tit-Bits was Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe), who had an appetite for odd bits of information similar to that of Newnes. In 1888, after editing Youth and Bicycling News, Harmsworth launched a rival to Tit-Bits called Answers to Correspondents, or Answers, which he successfully promoted by contests. Within five years he produced a string of inexpensive magazines for the same popular market, including Comic Cuts and Home Chat. A similar empire was built up by Arthur Pearson, another former Tit-Bits employee, with Pearson’s Weekly and Home Notes, among others.

In the United States, magazine publishing boomed as part of the general expansion after the Civil War. It was also helped by favourable postal rates for periodicals (1879). But a gulf remained between expensive magazines aimed at the genteel, such as Harper’s and Scribner’s (see below Literary and scientific magazines), and cheaper weeklies and miscellanies. The first person to produce a popular monthly to fill this gap and thus spark off a revolution in the industry was Samuel Sidney McClure, who began publishing McClure’s Magazine in 1893, which he sold for 15 cents an issue instead of the usual 25 or 35 cents. John Brisben Walker, who was building up Cosmopolitan (founded 1886) after acquiring it in 1889, cut his price to 12 12 cents, and in October 1893 Frank A. Munsey reduced the price of Munsey’s Magazine (1889–1929) to 10 cents. All three saw that, by keeping down the price and gearing contents to the interests and problems of the average reader, high circulations were attainable. Munsey estimated that, between 1893 and 1899, “the ten-cent magazine increased the magazine-buying public from 250,000 to 750,000 persons.” This increase in circulation in turn led to high advertising revenue, making it possible to sell a magazine, like a newspaper, for less than its cost of production, a practice that was to become common in the next century. Technical development was also important; mass-production methods and the use of photoengraving processes for illustration enabled attractive magazines to be produced at ever lower unit costs.

The first magazine published in Australia was the Australian Magazine, which began in 1821 and lasted for 13 monthly issues. The South Asian Register began as a quarterly in 1827 but only four issues appeared. The Hobart Town Magazine (1833–34) survived a bit longer and contained stories, poems, and essays by Australian writers. The Sydney Literary News (1837) was the first to contain serial fiction and advertisements. Illustrations were introduced in the 1840s; the Australian Gold Digger’s Monthly Magazine and Colonial Family Visitor (1852–53) was followed by the Melbourne Punch (1855–1925; incorporated in Table Talk, 1885–1937).

In India the first magazines were published by the British. The earliest to appear was the Oriental Magazine; or, Calcutta Amusement (1785–86); it was followed by a number of short-lived missionary publications. The first periodical founded and edited by an Indian was the Hindustan Review, which commenced in 1900.

Missionaries founded the first periodical in China; printed in Malacca, the Chinese Monthly Magazine lasted from 1815 to 1822. It was followed by the East-West Monthly Magazine, printed in Canton from 1833 to 1837 and in Singapore from 1837 until its end in 1847.

Illustrated magazines

The first man in Britain to notice the effect of illustrations on sales and grasp their possibilities was a newsagent in Nottingham, Herbert Ingram, who moved to London in 1842 and began publishing The Illustrated London News, a weekly consisting of 16 pages of letterpress and 32 woodcuts. It was successful from the start, winning the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury and hence that of the clerical public. Though it suffered at first from the defect that its pictures were by well-known artists but were not taken from life, it later sent artists all over the world. Drawings made on the spot during the South African War, sometimes at considerable risk, were a great popular feature. Among its competitors was the monthly English Illustrated Magazine (1883–1913).

The idea of presenting the news largely in pictures was quickly taken up in France by L’Illustration (1843–1944) and in Germany by the Leipziger illustrierte Zeitung (1843) and Die Woche (1899–1940).

In the United States, the main early illustrated magazines were Leslie’s Weekly (1855–1922) and Harper’s Weekly (1857). Soon after its founding, Leslie’s had a circulation of 100,000, which doubled or trebled whenever there was something sensational to portray. During the Civil War, of which it gave a good pictorial record, it had as many as 12 correspondents at the front.

The invention of photography and the development of the halftone block began to transform this type of magazine from the 1890s, with the artist increasingly being displaced by the camera.

Women’s magazines

Women’s magazines frequently reflect the changing view of women’s role in society. In the 18th century, when women were expected to participate in social and political life, those magazines aimed primarily at women were relatively robust and stimulating in content; in the 19th, when domesticity became the ideal, they were inclined to be insipid and humourless. After about 1880, magazines began to widen their horizons again.

Typical of the late Georgian and Regency magazines in Britain were The Lady’s Magazine (1770), a sixpenny monthly that, along with its literary contributions and fashion notes, gave away embroidery patterns and sheet music; The Lady’s Monthly Museum (1798), which had a half-yearly “Cabinet of Fashion” illustrated by coloured engravings, the first to appear in a women’s periodical; and La Belle Assemblée (1806), which encouraged its readers to unburden themselves in its correspondence columns. These three merged in 1832, the first instance of what was to become a common occurrence, but ceased publication in 1847. Later women’s magazines included The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine (1824–40), The Ladies’ Cabinet (1832–52), The New Monthly Belle Assemblée (1847–70), and The Ladies’ Treasury (1857–95). All contained verse, fiction, and articles of high moral tone but low intellectual content. There were attempts to swim against the tide, such as The Female’s Friend (1846), which was one of the first periodicals to espouse women’s rights, but they seldom lasted long.

In 1852 a wider market began to be tapped by The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, a monthly issued by Samuel Beeton at twopence instead of the usual one shilling; it was also the first women’s periodical to concentrate on home management and offer practical advice to women rather than provide entertainment for the idle. Beeton’s wife (author of the classic Book of Household Management, 1861) visited Paris regularly and acquired fashion plates from Adolphe Goubaud’s Moniteur de la Mode. A feature of Beeton’s magazine was the “Practical Dress Instructor,” a forerunner of the paper dressmaking pattern. In 1861, Beeton followed up his success with The Queen, a weekly newspaper of more topical character.

The great expansion of women’s magazines into a major industry may be dated in Britain from Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion (1875–1912) and Weldon’s Ladies’ Journal (1875–1954), both of which supplied dressmaking patterns and met the needs of a mass readership. Several new quality magazines were started, such as The Lady (founded 1885) and The Gentlewoman (1890–1926), one of the first to acknowledge the financial necessity of advertisements, but there were many more cheap weeklies, such as Home Notes (1894–1957), Home Chat (1895–1958), and Home Companion (1897–1956); these were of great help in teaching women about hygiene, nutrition, and child care.

Among the earliest women’s magazines in the United States was a monthly published in Philadelphia called Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830–98), which employed up to 150 women to hand-tint its fashion plates. Of the early national magazines, one of the best and hardiest was Harper’s Bazar (1867; Harper’s Bazaar after 1929), modeled on a Berlin women’s periodical, Der Bazar, from which it obtained its fashion material. The practical trend was begun in 1863 by Ebenezer Butterick, who devised the tissue-paper clothing pattern and, to popularize it, brought out the Ladies’ Quarterly Review of Broadway Fashions and, later, Metropolitan. These merged in 1873 into the Delineator, which had a highly successful career until 1937. The field of women’s magazines was finally transformed, however, by Cyrus Curtis with his Ladies’ Home Journal (founded 1883), edited by his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis. This soon reached a circulation of 400,000 and, under the editorship of Edward W. Bok, from 1889, broke with sentimentality and piety to become a stimulating journal of real service to women. Other popular magazines were Ladies’ Home Companion (1886; called Woman’s Home Companion, 1897–1957), McCall’s Magazine (founded 1897), and Pictorial Review (1899–1939). Two requiring special mention were Good Housekeeping (founded 1885), which established a testing station for consumer goods early in the 20th century, and Vogue (founded 1892), a fashion weekly (later a monthly) dedicated to “the ceremonial side of life,” which was designed for the elite of New York City and had Cornelius Vanderbilt among its backers.

Literary and scientific magazines

The critical review developed strongly in the 19th century, often as an adjunct to a book-publishing business. It became a forum for the questions of the day—political, literary, and artistic—to which many great figures contributed. There were also many magazines with a literary flavour, and these serialized some of the best fiction of the period. A few marked the beginning of specialization—e.g., in science.

Britain was particularly rich in reviews, beginning with the Edinburgh Review (1802–1929), founded by a trio of gifted young critics: Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, and Sydney Smith. The high and independent tone they adopted was said by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to mark an “epoch in periodical criticism.” Though Tories, including at first Sir Walter Scott, wrote for it, the Edinburgh Review gradually became increasingly Whig in attitude. Scott accordingly transferred his allegiance to the Quarterly Review (1809–1967), the Edinburgh Review’s Tory rival, founded by the London publisher John Murray and first edited by William Gifford. Gifford had previously edited The Anti-Jacobin (1797–98), with which such figures as the Tory statesman George Canning were associated. In opposition to these, and more political than any of them, was the Westminster Review (1824–1914), started by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill as an organ of the philosophical radicals. Two other early reviews were the Athenaeum (1828–1921), an independent literary weekly, and the Spectator (founded 1828), a nonpartisan but conservative-leaning political weekly that nonetheless supported parliamentary reform and the cause of the North in the American Civil War. Later reviews included the Saturday Review (1855–1938), which had George Bernard Shaw and Max Beerbohm as drama critics (1895–1910); the Fortnightly Review (1865–1954), which had the Liberal statesman John Morley as editor (1867–83); the Contemporary Review (founded 1866); the Nineteenth Century (1877; later the Twentieth Century, until it closed in 1974); and W.T. Stead’s Review of Reviews (1890–1936), a more limited version of Reader’s Digest.

Of the closely related literary magazines, one of the earliest and best was Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1817–1981), founded by a book publisher, William Blackwood, as a rival to the Edinburgh Review, but a less ponderous one than the Quarterly. It provoked in turn the founding of the London Magazine (1820–29), in which Charles Lamb’s Essays first appeared. The rivalry between these two publications led to a duel in which John Scott, the first editor of the London Magazine, was mortally wounded. Other literary periodicals included the Examiner (1808–80), edited by the radical essayist Leigh Hunt, who introduced the poetry of Shelley and Keats to the public through its columns; the New Monthly Magazine (1814–84); Bentley’s Miscellany (1837), which had Dickens as its first editor and Oliver Twist as one of its serials; and the Cornhill (1860–1975), first edited by William Thackeray and the first magazine of its kind to reach a circulation of 100,000. Finally, two rather different periodicals must be mentioned: Nature (founded 1869), which began to make scientific ideas more widely known and to which Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley contributed; and Punch (founded 1841), which provided a weekly humorous comment on British life illustrated by many distinguished draftsmen.

Continental European reviews tended to be more literary than political, perhaps because of the persistence of censorship. The most notable in France were the Revue des Deux Mondes (founded 1829; later La Nouvelle Revue des Deux Mondes), with such contributors as Victor Hugo and the critic Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, and its rival the (Nouvelle) Revue de Paris (founded 1829), which published authors disapproved of by the other, notably Gustave Flaubert. In Germany, F.A. Brockhaus, the book publisher, tried to emulate the Edinburgh Review with Hermes (1819–31) but had more success with Literarisches Wochenblatt (1820–98). Two later reviews were the conservative Deutsche Rundschau (founded 1874) and the liberal Freie Bühne (1890). Two influential Italian reviews were the Nuova Antologia (founded 1866) and La Cultura (1881–1935).

The early literary magazines in the United States included, among many others often of more local interest, the Philadelphia Literary Magazine (1803–08); the Monthly Anthology (Boston, 1803–11), which became the quarterly North American Review (1815–1940), with a host of famous contributors; the New York Monthly Magazine (1824); Dial (1840–44), the organ of the New England essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendental Club (there was a second, literary Dial, 1880–1929); and De Bow’s Review (New Orleans, 1846–80). The cultured weekly Home Journal (1846–1901; then continuing as Town and Country) introduced Swinburne and Balzac to Americans, while Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (New York City, 1850; later called Harper’s Magazine), founded by the book-publishing Harper brothers, serialized many of the great British novels and became one of America’s finest quality magazines. It was rivaled only by the Atlantic (Boston, 1857; later called Atlantic Monthly), which had a long line of distinguished editors, beginning with James Russell Lowell, and published most of the great American writers, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes onward; it seemed to enjoy “a perpetual state of literary grace.” Similar in quality was Scribner’s Monthly (1870), which became the Century (1881–1930) but was restarted as Scribner’s Magazine (1887–1939). A fine magazine in the Far West was Overland Monthly (San Francisco, 1868–1935), first edited by Bret Harte. Non-literary specialized magazines included Scientific American, which was founded in 1845 by Rufus Porter, a talented inventor whose magazine encouraged other inventors; Popular Science Monthly, which was founded in 1872, to spread scientific knowledge and which had the philosophers William James and John Dewey among its contributors; and the ever-popular National Geographic Magazine, founded in 1888 and published ever since by the National Geographic Society, which used some of the proceeds to sponsor scientific expeditions.

Scholarly journals

The publishing of scholarly journals, begun in the 17th century, expanded greatly in the 19th as fresh fields of inquiry opened up or old ones were further divided into specialties. Numerous learned societies were formed in such fields as classical studies, biblical studies, archaeology, philology, Egyptology, the Orient, and all the branches into which science was dividing, and each society published a regular bulletin, proceedings, or “transactions,” which enabled scholars to keep in touch with what others were doing. In the sober pages of these journals, seldom read by the general public, some of the most far-reaching discoveries were first made known. Among the many notable publications were Annali del Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica (1829), the Revue Archéologique (founded 1844), Philologus (1846), Mind (founded 1876), the Journal of Hellenic Studies (founded 1880), the American Journal of Philology (founded 1880), the Asiatic Quarterly (1886; later called South Asian Review), the Geographical Journal (1893), and an interesting informal aid to scholars, Notes and Queries (1849), with the motto: “When found, make a note of.” In every advanced country the professions too began to have journals, such as medicine’s Lancet (founded 1823), in Britain, originally started to attack abuses in hospital administration; the Mining Journal (founded 1835); the British Medical Journal (founded 1840); The Engineer (founded 1856); and the Solicitors’ Journal (founded 1857), to cite only a few examples. In the course of time, these developed endless technical ramifications. The economics of all such journals are based on necessity. Though their circulation is small, anyone working in a particular field generally subscribes to them or at least has access to them in appropriate libraries. They can be described as reference books in installments.

The 20th century

The advertising revolution in popular magazines

There was a certain resistance to advertising in magazines, in keeping with their literary affinities. When the advertisement tax in Britain was repealed in 1853 and more advertising began to appear, the Athenaeum thought fit to say: “It is the duty of an independent journal to protect as far as possible the credulous, confiding and unwary from the wily arts of the insidious advertiser.” In the United States many magazines, such as Harper’s, took a high line with would-be advertisers until the 1880s; and Reader’s Digest, with its mammoth circulation, admitted advertisements to its American edition only in 1955. Yet today some sectors of the magazine industry are dominated by advertising, and few are wholly free from its influence.

Magazine advertising economics

In the United States Cyrus Curtis showed what could be achieved in attracting advertising revenue with the Saturday Evening Post. He bought the magazine for $1,000 in 1897, when it was on its last legs, and invested $1,250,000 of his profits from the Ladies’ Home Journal before it finally caught on. But when it did, through an appeal based on well-founded stories and articles about the business world, a prime interest at the time, its success was enormous; by 1922 it had a circulation of more than 2,000,000 and an advertising revenue in excess of $28,000,000. It was a classic demonstration of modern magazine economics: as circulation rose in the initial phase of low advertising rates, money had to be poured in to meet the cost of producing more copies; but, as soon as high advertising rates could be justified by a high circulation, profitability was assured. Conversely, when high rates are maintained on a falling circulation, it is the advertisers who lose, until they withdraw their support.

Once circulation figures became all-important, advertisers naturally asserted their right to verify them. The first attempt, made in 1899 by the Association of American Advertisers, only lasted until 1913, but fresh initiatives in 1914 created the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Though resented at first by publishers, it was eventually seen as a guarantee of their claims. Interest in circulation led publishers into market research. The first organization for this purpose was set up by the Curtis Publishing Company in 1911; but such research did not become general until the 1930s. Reader research, to ascertain what readers wanted from magazines, was also developed in the 1930s and proved to be a useful tool, though no substitute for editorial flair. As was once observed by the features editor of Vogue: “If we find out what people want, it’s already too late.”

Thus the popular magazine in the United States, expanding with the economy, became part of the marketing system. By 1900 advertisements might form up to 50 percent of its contents; by 1947, the proportion was more often 65 percent. A proprietor was no longer just selling attractive editorial matter to a segment of the public; he was also selling a well-charted segment of the public to the advertiser. Though the process was most pronounced in the United States, a vast country where, in the absence of national newspapers, national magazines had a special function, the same principles came to apply, in varying degrees, in Europe.

The effects of advertising on the appearance of the magazine have been, on the whole, stimulating. At the turn of the century, advertisements began to move forward from the back pages into greater prominence among the editorial matter, and this was often regretted by readers. At the same time, advertising agencies were developing from mere space sellers into copywriters and designers; their efforts to produce work of high visual appeal forced editors to make their own editorial typography and layout more attractive. The use of colour, in particular, was greatly fostered by advertisers once they discovered its effectiveness. In the 1880s colour printing was rare, but, after the development of the multicolour rotary press in the 1890s, it steadily became more common. By 1948 nearly half the advertising pages of the leading American magazines were in two or more colours.

The effect of advertising on editorial content is harder to analyze. Advertisers have not been slow to exercise financial pressure and have often succeeded in suppressing material or modifying policy. In 1940, for instance, Esquire lost its piano advertisements after publishing an article recommending the guitar for musical accompaniment; six months later it tried to win them back with a rueful editorial apology. Yet many magazines, notably the Saturday Evening Post, Time, and The New Yorker, have persistently asserted editorial independence. Something like a balance of power has come into being, which can tip either way. What can safely be said is that advertising pressure as a whole has been a socially conservative force, playing on conformity, inclining magazines to work on the principle of “minimum offense,” and holding them back from radical editorial departures until they are clearly indicated by changes in public taste. This has tended to make the large-circulation magazine an exploiter rather than a discoverer of fresh talent or new ideas. Yet in the last analysis, advertisers have been forced to recognize that magazines, like newspapers, cannot forgo too much of their independence without forfeiting the loyalty of their readers and hence their value as an advertising medium.

Women’s magazines in the United States

The bond with advertising is probably most evident in magazines for women, since they are the greatest buyers of consumer goods. In the United States, up to the mid-1930s, such magazines were largely “trade-papers for home-makers.” There were exceptions, such as True Story (founded 1919), which concentrated on entertainment, and Vogue, which introduced readers to a wider world, but more typical was Better Homes and Gardens (founded 1922), which gave fresh impetus to the trend toward “service” by helping both men and women in the running of their homes. In this area, of course, advertising pressure can be considerable—e.g., for editorial support of a new product—but editors have usually contained it within some limits.

An innovation in the 1930s was the store-distributed magazine. One of the first and most successful was Family Circle (founded 1932), given away in Piggly Wiggly supermarkets until 1946, when it was sold as a family monthly. Equally successful were Woman’s Day (founded 1937), published by a subsidiary of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, and Better Living (founded 1951), sponsored by the Super Market Institute. During the 1930s women’s magazines broadened their base to combat falling circulations and to meet changes in taste, as they did again in the 1950s, in a similar crisis.

By the late 1980s scores of political and literary magazines of broadly feminist sympathies had been established, one of the most prominent being Ms. (founded 1972), a nonprofit magazine with a circulation of about 500,000. Another general trend has been to direct appeal toward younger women, not only in the old magazines but also in such newer ones as Seventeen (founded 1944), Ingenue (founded 1959), and Teen (founded 1957).

Advertising in Britain and Europe

Though the advertising revolution began in Britain at much the same time as in the United States, its course has been less explosive. By 1898, The Gentlewoman was pointing out in its first issue that every copy cost “nearly double the price for which it is sold.” Yet Britain’s Audit Bureau of Circulations was not set up until 1931, and membership remained small until the 1960s; for it was only then that consumer spending in Britain (and hence advertising) really began to soar, to be reflected in a boom in women’s magazines. In the early part of the century, the old general magazines continued to flourish, with such additions as the Windsor Magazine (1895–1939), Pearson’s Magazine (1896–1909), Argosy (founded 1926), which published only fiction, and the popular weekly John Bull (1906–64), which thrived on “revelations.” Several American magazines, especially women’s, began to come out in British editions, such as Vogue (1916), Good Housekeeping (1922), and Harper’s Bazaar (1929; in 1970 amalgamated with Queen as Harpers & Queen). Society periodicals lost ground after World War I to those catering to the so-called new poor and new rich, although snobbery still proved a lucrative element in magazine publishing, notably with the Tatler, which became highly successful under a new editor in the early 1980s. The fortnightly Queen, Woman’s Weekly (founded 1911), and the monthly Woman and Home (founded 1926) and Woman’s Journal (founded 1927) were joined by such popular weeklies as Woman’s Own (founded 1932), Woman’s Illustrated (1936–61), and, above all, Woman (founded 1937), the first to be printed by colourgravure. During World War II some of these magazines gave valuable practical advice on how to cope with shortages. In postwar Britain magazines began to be distributed through retail outlets—mostly supermarkets—other than bookshops or newsagents. The chief examples were Family Circle (founded 1964), an Anglo-American production, and its sister publication, Living (founded 1967). The trend toward youthful markets was indicated by She (founded 1955), broad and robust in outlook; Honey (founded 1960); Annabel (founded 1966), for younger married women in particular; Petticoat (1966–75), for girls 14 to 19 years old; and 19 (1968), a market leader. The death of many of the old general magazines, under the pressure of paperbacks and television, and the dearth of illustrated weeklies (see below Picture magazines) left room for a new advertising vehicle. The first to perceive this was Lord Thomson, who in 1962 brought out a colour magazine as supplement to the Sunday Times (London). Its eventual success forced the Observer and the Daily Telegraph to follow suit (the colour supplement was eventually removed from the latter paper and issued instead with its sister publication, the Sunday Telegraph). In the early 1980s the popular Sunday papers also started supplements.

In the rest of Europe the impact of advertising on magazines has been more delayed and less pronounced, partly because market prices of continental magazines tend to be closer to the production cost. General magazines were fairly limited before World War II, but since then, as part of the economic expansion, there has been a rich crop, including many newsmagazines similar to Time and Life and also a number of magazines for women. France has several of the latter with large circulations, including Nous Deux, Elle, and Intimité, while those in Germany include entries for all age groups, such as Jasmin for newlyweds and Eltern for parents. Though the northern European countries have fewer periodicals, it is worth noting that in Finland Pirkka, a giveaway distributed through grocery stores, achieved one of the largest magazine circulations.

Publications outside Europe and the United States

Japan. The outstanding early 20th-century personality in Japanese magazine publication was Noma Seiji, who published nine magazines, nearly all with six-figure circulations. World War II did not seriously affect periodicals; and, at the end of occupation in 1952, there were more than 2,000 of all kinds, including Shufu No Tomo (1917–56; “Woman’s Friend”), Yoiko No Tomo (1924–57; “Child’s Friend”), and Le-no-Hikari (founded 1925; “Light of Home”).

Africa

Important publications in Africa have included the quarterly East African Africana (founded 1962); the Zimbabwean Africa Calls (1960), published every two months; the quarterly Nigeria Magazine (1933–66); the quarterly Pan African Journal (1967), published in Kenya; and, in South Africa, journals in Afrikaans. Elsewhere, magazines in African languages have increased, as have those in English and French—e.g., the Nigerian Black Orpheus (founded 1957), containing creative writing by Africans and West Indians.

India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan

Important 20th-century magazines in India include the Illustrated Weekly of India (founded 1880), a topical review for educated readers; the Statesman Weekly (founded 1924), an illustrated digest of Indian news and views; the monthly general review Current Events (founded 1955); Thought (New Delhi, 1949–78/79), a political and economic weekly; the monthly Akhand Anand (founded 1947); and the weekly Akashvani (founded 1936), Dharmayug (founded 1950), and Mukhabir-I-Alam (1903). Sport and Pastime (1947), with offices in several cities, is well illustrated. Eve’s Weekly (founded 1947), in English, Urdū, and Hindi, is a popular women’s magazine. Bangladesh weeklies include Bangladesh Sangbad (founded 1972). Pakistani periodicals include the monthly Subrang Digest (1970) and the weekly Muslim World (1961).

South America

Argentina had a greater magazine circulation than any other nation in South America until the mid-1970s, when total circulation decreased by almost one-half (it later began to recover slowly). The weekly rotogravure Maribel (1932–56) long had the highest periodical circulation in that country, closely followed by that of the women’s weekly Para ti (founded 1922). Mexico’s leading magazine in the early 1980s was the weekly Selecciones del Reader’s Digest; others included the weeklies El Libro Semanal (1954) and Alarma (1963). Venezuelan periodicals include the weekly Resumen (founded 1973) and Elite (1925).

News and photo magazines

The accelerated tempo of life in the 20th century, coupled with the bewildering amount of information appearing in print, suggested the need for more concise ways of presenting it. The first to show how it could be done and so give rise to a whole new class of periodical was the U.S. newsmagazine Time, founded in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce.

Time magazine

There had, of course, been newsmagazines before, in both Europe and the United States. Time magazine’s immediate forerunner was the Pathfinder (1894–1954), a weekly rewriting of the news for rural readers. There had also been attempts at compression of the digest type (see below Digests and pocket magazines). But Time was the first to aim at a brief and systematic presentation of the whole of the world’s news. It was based on the proposition that “people are uninformed because no publication has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able to spend simply keeping informed.” Its beginning was amateurish and precarious; neither Hadden nor Luce had much experience when they started summarizing the news from bundles of daily papers (copyright provisions on newspapers allowing this use). But after 1928 it grew steadily, finding its market chiefly among the rising number of college graduates. What came to be known as the Time style was characterized, in the words of a later critic, by two great democratic ideals, disrespect for authority and reverence for success. Time presented the news in tightly packed sentences, well researched and checked, and with a general air of omniscience. In the 1930s, to ensure adequate sources of information, Time Inc. built up a large news-gathering organization of its own. It also branched out into other publications, including Fortune (founded 1930), summarizing business news, Life (see below), and People, a weekly begun in 1974.

Among the direct followers of Time in the United States were Business Week (founded 1929), United States News (founded 1933), and Newsweek (founded 1933), its nearest rival. Similar magazines appeared in Shanghai (East, 1933) and in Britain (the News Review, 1936), though the latter did not have a comparable success, partly because Britain was so well supplied with national dailies. After World War II the United States had several newsmagazines of a regional nature, such as Fortnight (1946) in California and Texas Week (1946). Time has had its greatest influence, however, in postwar Europe, where such magazines as L’Express (founded 1953) in France, Der Spiegel (founded 1947) in Germany, and Panorama (founded 1962) in Italy derived directly from it. Such magazines did not always develop in exactly the direction that Time had taken, but L’Express was radically changed at least twice by its owners; the first time it followed Time fairly closely. Der Spiegel (“The Mirror”) became famous for its aggressive, antiauthoritarian exposures of scandal and malpractice, while Panorama achieved a high standing and a reputation for reliability. The influence of Time can probably be traced in most newsmagazines, as in Tiempo (founded 1942) in Mexico or Primera Plana (founded 1962) in Argentina.

Picture magazines

Conciseness can also be achieved through pictures, which obviate the need for description. Illustrated newsmagazines began in the 19th century, but they took an altogether new form as photography developed. The most influential, though by no means the first of the modern type, was undoubtedly the American weekly Life (1936–72), started by Henry Luce.

Pictorial journalism grew up alongside advertising techniques, the tabloid, and the documentary film. Modern cameras enabled top-grade photographs to be taken quickly under almost any conditions. Photojournalists were particularly active in Germany, until many had to flee the Nazis. One of them was the Hungarian Stefan Lorant, who developed the photo essay (a story reported through pictures) with Bilder Courier in Berlin in 1926 and with the Münchener illustrierte Presse in the period 1927–33. He then went to Britain, where he started a pocket picture magazine, Lilliput (1937–60), and was the first editor of Picture Post (1938–57). Another pioneer was a German, Erich Salomon, who became celebrated for his photographs of the famous, particularly politicians, in unguarded moments. Salomon’s pictures in the London Tatler in 1928 prompted Fortune to invite him to the United States, where he inspired the Life photographer Thomas McAvoy.

In November 1936, therefore, when Life first appeared, picture magazines were already fairly common. Only a month before, Mid-Week Pictorial (1914–37), an American weekly of news pictures, had been restyled along the lines Life was to take, but Life quickly overwhelmed it. Though expected to have a circulation of well under 500,000 copies, Life was running at 1,000,000 within weeks. Its first issue, 96 large pages of pictures on glossy paper for 10 cents, was a sellout, the opening picture brilliant: an obstetrician holding a newborn baby, with the caption “Life begins.” Over the years, it kept the promise of its prospectus: “To see life; to see the world; to witness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things. . . .” During World War II, which it covered with great accomplishment, it enlarged its operations with a fortnightly international edition, and in 1952 a Spanish-language edition was added for Latin America, Life en Español. In 1971 Life magazine’s circulation was about 7,000,000, but its high costs were no longer being met by advertising income, and it ceased publication in December 1972; it was revived as a monthly in October 1978.

Of the countless imitators of Life, many were American, such as Focus, Peek, Foto, and two of longer duration, Pic (1937–48) and Click (1938–44). Best known was Look (1937–71; briefly revived 1979), a popular biweekly. It was founded by Gardner Cowles, Jr., who also started Quick (1949–53), a miniature magazine. Britain had two news picture magazines, Picture Post (1938–57), which acquired much prestige through its social conscience, and Illustrated (1939–58); their place was taken to some extent by the Sunday colour supplements. The French Paris-Match (founded 1949), exceptionally well-produced and well-supplied with photographers, gained preeminence throughout Europe; while West Germany produced Stern (founded 1948), a glossy blend of light and serious material, and Italy, where magazines are read more than newspapers, produced Oggi Illustrato (founded 1945), thriving on not-too-sensational disclosures, and the elegant Epoca (founded 1950). Magazines similar to Life appeared in a number of other countries, such as Cruzeiro (founded about 1908) in Brazil and Perspektywy (founded 1969) in Poland, and still more that follow the style of Look, such as Manchete Esportiva (founded 1952) in Brazil, Caretas (founded 1950) in Peru, or the Australian Pix–People.

Digests and pocket magazines

Reader’s Digest magazine

The need for concise reading matter, so well met by Time and Life, was met even more successfully, in terms of circulation, by an American magazine that reprinted in condensed form articles from other periodicals. This was the pocket-size Reader’s Digest, founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace.

Its forerunners in the United States were the Literary Digest (1890–1938), started by two former Lutheran ministers, Isaac K. Funk and Adam W. Wagnalls; the Review of Reviews (1890–1937), founded by Albert Shaw to condense material about world affairs; and Frank Munsey’s Scrap Book (1906–12), “a granary for the gleanings of literature.” The Literary Digest, in particular, with a circulation of more than 1,000,000 in the early 1920s, was something of an American institution. Its famous straw votes successfully predicted the result of the presidential elections after 1920, and its highly publicized wrong prediction of the outcome of the 1936 election played a decisive part in its collapse. Reader’s Digest, however, was more specific in content and more universal in appeal. It aimed to supply “An article a day from leading magazines in condensed, permanent, booklet form.” Each article, moreover, satisfied three criteria: “applicability” (it had to be of concern to the average reader); “lasting interest” (it had to be readable a year later); and “constructiveness” (it had to be on the side of optimism and good works).

After three years’ preparation, Wallace began to produce the magazine (first issue February 1922) from a basement office in New York City. After a year, subscriptions were running at about 7,000. In 1939, when circulation had reached 3,000,000, Reader’s Digest moved into large premises at nearby Chappaqua. Until 1930 it was produced entirely by amateurs. Condensed books began to be added at the end of the magazine in 1934, and from this grew the Reader’s Digest Condensed Book Club, with 2,500,000 members four years later. Overseas editions were started in 1939 (British), and foreign-language editions in 1940 (Spanish), others being steadily added over the following 10 years. In the late 1980s, Reader’s Digest had one of the largest circulations of any magazine in the world.

This success was not achieved entirely without setbacks and criticism. At first, permission to reprint was easy to obtain and was without charge; but after a while, and especially after competitors entered the field and sometimes reprinted without permission, magazines began to regard the digests as parasitic. Payments were required, which rose steadily, and the major proprietors withheld their permission at various times. To guard against this and because articles of the sort he wanted were in short supply, Wallace began to print original material in the Digest in 1933. To keep up the appearance of a digest, articles were commissioned and then offered to other magazines in exchange for the right to “condense” and reprint them. Such articles, “cooperatively planned” according to the Digest, “planted” according to critics, were naturally welcome to many magazines with slender budgets, but they did lead to controversy. In 1944 The New Yorker, fearing that Reader’s Digest was generating too big a fraction of magazine articles in the United States, attacked the system as “a threat to the free flow of ideas and to the independent spirit”; but, in the more general view, the matter was regarded as a private one for the parties concerned. Internationally, too, the Digest was attacked by some after World War II for its part in “American cultural imperialism”; but it has continued to find favour with the magazine public.

The digest idea was soon taken up by others, often in direct competition but also in more limited areas, such as Science Digest, Catholic Digest, Negro Digest, and Children’s Digest. There was also a Cartoon Digest (1939), an Editorial Digest (1947), and a Column Digest (1949). Most of the general digests used original articles, since competition for the limited amount of highly popular reprinted material became too keen, and Reader’s Digest, as first in the field, was always able to outbid its competitors. One of the more successful was Magazine Digest (founded 1930), which was based in Canada and contained a good deal of scientific and technical matter. One that tried a new formula, based on timeliness and a liberal slant, was Reader’s Scope (1943–48). The most successful book digest was probably Omnibook (1938–57), each issue of which contained abridgments of several popular works of fiction and nonfiction. The digests originally carried no advertising, but after World War II they were gradually driven to it by rising costs. One of the last to capitulate was Reader’s Digest in 1955; the proportion of advertising was restricted, however, to 20 percent.

Types of pocket magazines

The success of Reader’s Digest also had an influence through its format; it popularized the pocket magazine as a type. Several of the self-improving variety, such as Your Life (founded 1937) and Success Today (1946–50), were started by Wilfred J. Funk on the proceeds from his father’s Literary Digest (sold to Time in 1938). Of those more directly inspired by Reader’s Digest, Coronet (1936–61), an offshoot of Esquire Inc., built up a large circulation during World War II, and when it closed, a victim of the promotion race, it was still running at more than 3,000,000. Somewhat livelier and glossier was Pageant, first published in 1944. Britain had several pocket magazines, such as London Opinion, Men Only, and Lilliput, but these owed rather less to Reader’s Digest. Finally, there have been a few “superdigests,” miniature newsmagazines with pictures and a minimum of text, such as Tempo (1950), People Today (founded 1950), and Jet (founded 1951).

Specialized magazines

Though general magazines have the largest circulations, most magazines cater to specialist interests or pursuits. Circulation varies, but, even where it is small, it is usually stable over the short term and offers an advertiser a well-defined market. Such magazines may be broadly classified into professional (including trade and technical) and nonprofessional journals.

Professional types

The professional magazine, often the organ of an association, keeps members informed of the latest developments, helps them to maintain standards, and defends their interests. Some were started in the 19th century, but specialization and different viewpoints within specialties have encouraged proliferation. Instead of two or three medical journals, for instance, there are now likely to be dozens, besides those in specialized areas such as dentistry, ophthalmology, and psychiatry. Though most of these magazines are of little interest to the general public, a few print authoritative articles of broader scope.

Trade and technical journals serve those working in industry and commerce. They too have grown enormously in numbers. Major discoveries in science, manufacturing methods, or business practice tend to create a new subdivision of technology, with its own practitioners and, more often than not, its own magazine. Articles in these magazines tend to be highly factual and accurately written, by people deeply immersed in their subjects. Most are well produced, often on art paper for the sake of the illustrations, and heavily dependent on advertising. Indeed, many are issued for a controlled circulation; i.e., a publisher undertakes to distribute a magazine free of charge to a given number of specialist concerns, which can be relied upon to want a certain range of products. The manufacturers of these products, for their part, are naturally glad to have an advertising medium guaranteed to reach their particular market. The business papers may lack glamour, but they play a vital and highly influential part in economic life.

Nonprofessional types

Of the nonprofessional magazines, quite a number serve broad interest groups, religious, political, or social. Most religious denominations have journals, often more than one. Though some of these magazines are subsidized as part of a drive to spread their message, most of them merely aim to foster corporate feeling among coreligionists. Much the same applies to political magazines in the narrow sense—i.e., where they are issued by political organizations: they discuss doctrine, give news of activities, and forge links among members. Political discussion on less partisan matters and in a less partisan tone tends to take place in more general magazines. Certain periodicals spring from the needs of particular groups, an example being student magazines.

Specialized magazines for the layman may fall into the hobby category. Very often a professional magazine has an amateur counterpart, as, for instance, in electronics, where the amateur finds a wide range of technical magazines on radio, television, hi-fi, and tape recording. Other popular subjects are photography (the British Amateur Photographer was founded in 1884) and motoring (Hearst’s Motor was founded, as Motor Cycling and Motoring, in 1902); specialization even extends to types of camera and makes of car. Virtually no hobby or sport is without its magazine. As soon as any activity becomes sufficiently popular, a magazine appears to cater to its adherents and to provide an advertising medium, not only for manufacturers and suppliers but also for readers, to help them buy and sell secondhand equipment, for instance.

Some special tastes in entertainment are met by the “pulp” and “comic” magazines. In 1896 Frank Munsey turned his Argosy into an all-fiction magazine using rough wood-pulp paper. The “dime novel” did not qualify for inexpensive postal rates in the United States, but the pulp magazine did, and so an industry was born. Pulps began as adventure magazines but soon split up into further categories: love, detective, and western. Such magazines sold in the millions up to the mid-1930s, when they gradually lost ground to the comics. These began as collections reprinted from the comic strips in newspapers; the first to appear regularly was Famous Funnies (1934). After 1937, however, with Detective Comics, they came into their own as original publications, and, like the pulps, they grew into a major industry, dividing up into much the same types. They may be seen, in effect, as pictorial condensations of the pulps. Though mainly for children, they were widely read by adults. “Comic” rapidly became a misnomer, as they played increasingly on horror and violence. While some defended them as harmless and even cathartic, others condemned them as incitements to imitation. Attempts at control were made through legislation in the United States and elsewhere, and the industry itself tried to set standards. Television has since drawn much of the criticism, and the demand, to itself, but comics remain big business. One type of magazine, originally classed as pulp but attaining with the years a certain respectability, is the science-fiction magazine, the first example of which was Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, first published in 1926.

The “fan” magazines offer glimpses of life behind the scenes in the world of entertainment and sport. In the heyday of motion pictures, many magazines on films and their stars appeared, beginning with Photoplay (1911–77) and Picture Play (1915) and later others, such as Movie Mirror (1930) and Movieland (1942). When radio and television became popular, similar magazines sprang up centring on programs and their personalities. One of their functions was to provide a weekly timetable of programs.

Finally, there are a number of “special service” magazines—e.g., financial magazines to help the private investor, magazines of advice issued by consumer associations, magazines specifically for house hunters, racegoers, or for trading in secondhand goods, and so on.

Scholarly, cultural, and literary magazines

As the 20th century progressed, the old critical review lost some of its former glory, but it often wielded an influence quite out of proportion to its circulation. One may distinguish broadly between the scholarly type of review, the more widely read politico-cultural periodical, and the purely literary magazine.

Britain

Many of the British reviews founded in the 19th century have continued to flourish. Among additions of the scholarly type were the Hibbert Journal (1902–70), a nonsectarian quarterly for the discussion of religion, philosophy, sociology, and the arts; the Times Literary Supplement (founded 1902), important for the completeness of its coverage of all aspects of books and bibliographical matters; International Affairs (founded 1922), the journal of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs; and The Political Quarterly (founded 1930), for the discussion of social and political questions from a progressive but nonparty point of view. Of the weekly political reviews, the Spectator (founded 1828), was representative of the right, and the New Statesman (founded 1913), founded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, of the left, though both in a broad context; while Time and Tide(1920–79), originally founded by Lady Rhondda as an independent journal, was an influential newsmagazine. Several other periodicals met the need for serious articles on current questions; among them are The Economist (founded 1843); The Listener (founded 1929), published by the British Broadcasting Corporation and consisting mainly of radio talks in printed form; the New Scientist (founded 1956), drawing attention to current scientific work; and New Society (founded 1962), concentrating on sociology. Literary magazines came and went, but not without leaving their mark. They included the Egoist (1914–19), associated with Ezra Pound and the Imagists; the London Mercury (1919–39), started by J.C. (later Sir John) Squire, one of the Georgian poets; the Criterion (1922–39), founded and edited by T.S. Eliot; the Adelphi (1923–55), of John Middleton Murry; New Writing (1936–46), edited by John Lehmann, who also later revived the old London Magazine (from 1954); and Horizon (1940–50; revived 1958), which Cyril Connolly started as a medium for literature during the war years. Later, Encounter (founded 1953), an international review originally sponsored by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, proved to be an intellectual magazine of value and distinction. In addition, many “little magazines” have struggled along, as always, providing essential seedbeds for new writers.

The United States

American counterparts to British scholarly journals include the Political Science Quarterly (founded 1886), edited by the political science faculty of Columbia University; the American Scholar (founded 1932), “a quarterly for the independent thinker” edited by the united chapters of Phi Beta Kappa; Foreign Affairs (founded 1922), a quarterly dealing with the international aspects of America’s political and economic problems; and Arts in Society (founded 1958), a forum for the discussion of the role of art, which also publishes poetry and reviews. Of general political journals, the oldest still in publication in the 1990s was The Nation, founded in 1865 by E.L. Godkin and edited in the period 1918–34 by Oswald Garrison Villard. By tradition it adopted a critical stand on most matters, disdaining approval by the majority; it was notable for the “casual brilliance” of its literary reviews. When the muckraking phase in the popular magazines died down, zeal for reform was left to a succession of little magazines that led precarious lives, often needing extra support from loyal readers or rich individuals. Such were the Progressive (founded 1909), of the La Follette family; The Masses (1911–17), run by the Greenwich Village Socialists; and The New Republic (founded 1914), which was started by Herbert Croly with the backing of the Straight family as “frankly an experiment” and “a journal of opinion to meet the challenge of the new time” and which survived as a liberal organ after many triumphs and vicissitudes. Between the wars came the Marxist Liberator (1918–24); the Freeman (1920–24 and 1950–54), founded to recommend the single-tax principle of Henry George and later revived as a Republican journal; the New Leader (founded 1927), for 10 years the organ of the American Socialist Party; and the extreme left New Masses (1926–48). Postwar foundations included the anticommunist Plain Talk (1946–50); the fortnightly Reporter (1949–68), strong on “facts and ideas”; and the conservative National Review (founded 1955). Of the literary magazines, the Atlantic and Harper’s were joined by the American Mercury (founded 1924), which had a brilliant initial period under H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, when it published work by many distinguished writers of the time; and the Saturday Review (founded 1924), which began as a purely literary magazine but broadened its scope in the 1940s. In 1972 a new ownership brought more changes. A powerful influence on American writing has been exerted by The New Yorker (founded 1925), mainly through its founder Harold Ross, a perfectionist among editors. It became famous for its cartoons and biographical studies. Finally, there has been no lack of “little magazines” to foster talent.

Continental Europe

Among the numerous literary magazines in Europe, several in France and Germany in particular may be mentioned. The Mercure de France was revived in 1890 as an organ of the Symbolists; the influential Nouvelle Revue Française (1909) aimed at a fresh examination of literary and intellectual values; and the Nouvelles Littéraires (1922) was founded by André Gillon as a weekly of information, criticism, and bibliography. After World War II there appeared Jean-Paul Sartre’s left-wing monthly Les Temps Modernes (founded 1945), La Table Ronde (1948), and Les Lettres Nouvelles (1953). In Germany, political magazines included the radical Die Fackel (1899; “The Torch”) and Die neue Gesellschaft (1903–07; “The New Society”) of the Social Democrats. An important literary influence was Blätter für die Kunst, associated with the Neoromantic movement of Stefan George. The Nazi period imposed a break in development, but after World War II the liberal weekly Die Zeit and a number of literary journals, such as Westermanns Monatshefte, Neue deutsche Hefte, and Akzente, appeared.

The political involvement of the literary review was especially marked in the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries. The Literaturnaya Gazeta (founded 1929) and the influential Novy Mir (founded 1925; “New World”) often became the centre of controversy in the Soviet Union when writers were condemned for their views or denied the opportunity to publish. This led to a strong underground press. In Czechoslovakia the Literárne Listy played a prominent part in the freedom movement of 1968 and was later suppressed at Soviet insistence, along with the Reportér and Student, leading to the start of several underground magazines. Sinn und Form (founded 1949), a Marxist critical journal in Berlin, was subject to temporary suspensions for publishing such authors as Sartre, Kafka, and Hemingway, whose works had been banned in East Germany.

General works

David M. Brownstone and Irene M. Franck, The Dictionary of Publishing (1982); and Jean Peters (ed.), The Bookman’s Glossary, 6th rev. and enlarged ed. (1983), explain terminology, the former emphasizing business aspects. Colin Clair, A History of Printing in Britain (1966), and A History of European Printing (1976), are useful for early periods. S.H. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years of Printing, 3rd ed. (1974), is comprehensive; it may be supplemented by Robin Myers and Michael Harris (eds.), A Millennium of the Book: Production, Design & Illustration in Manuscript & Print, 900–1900 (1994), which, despite its title, treats more than books. John W. Seybold, The World of Digital Typesetting (1984), charts the history of various printing techniques from the earliest days to the 1980s and emphasizes the importance of computers. Hugh Evison Look (ed.), Electronic Publishing: A Snapshot of the Early 1980s (1983), surveys the state of the art at the time. Philip Hills (ed.), The Future of the Printed Word: The Impact and the Implications of the New Communications Technology (1980), discusses the relationship of publishing and computer technology. Also useful are Martin Greenberger (ed.), Electronic Publishing Plus: Media for a Technological Future (1985); George E. Whitehouse, Understanding the New Technologies of the Mass Media (1986); and Oldrich Standera, The Electronic Era of Publishing: An Overview of Concepts, Technologies, and Methods (1987).

Legal aspects of the industry are explored in W.J. Leaper, Copyright and Performing Rights (1957), an early history of copyright in England and the implications of the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention; Allen Kent and Harold Lancour (eds.), Copyright: Current Viewpoints on History, Laws, Legislation (1972), a collection of essays from professional sources; Richard Wincor and Irving Mandell, Copyright, Patents, and Trademarks: The Protection of Intellectual and Industrial Property (1980), a history of copyright in the United States; Denis De Freitas, The Copyright System: Practice and Problems in Developing Countries (1983), a survey of key principles and practices; Lee Boaz Hall, International Magazine and Book Licensing (1983); and two authoritative textbooks published by the Practising Law Institute: Richard Dannay and E. Gabriel Perle (eds.), Legal and Business Aspects of Book Publishing (1986); and Peter C. Gould and Stephen H. Gross (eds.), Legal and Business Aspects of the Magazine Industry (1984). Copyright Bulletin (quarterly), published by UNESCO, presents current information on worldwide copyright practices.

Allen Kentet al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, 35 vol. (1968–83), continued with supplemental volumes, provides comprehensive information on many aspects of publishing. Another valuable reference source for current information is The Bowker Annual of Library & Book Trade Information. Vito J. Brenni, The Art and History of Book Printing: A Topical Bibliography (1984), Book Illustration and Decoration: A Guide to Research (1980), Book Printing in Britain and America: A Guide to the Literature and a Directory of Printers (1983), and Bookbinding, a Guide to the Literature (1982), are bibliographical guides for further study.

Book publishing

The literature on book publishing and the culture of print is reviewed in two essays in Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (1990): “What Is the History of Books?,” pp. 107–135, and “First Steps Toward a History of Reading,” pp. 154–187. The impact of literacy on Western modes of thought is discussed in Eric A. Havelock, Origins of Western Literacy (1976); and Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982, reissued 1991). General works on the history of the book, which examine technical and commercial developments and the impact of the book on European culture, include Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450–1800 (1976, reissued 1990; originally published in French, 1958); and Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols. (1979). The last has been influential but also controversial; a penetrating critique is Anthony T. Grafton, “The Importance of Being Printed,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 11(2):265–286 (Autumn 1980). Major case studies of the history of the book include Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900 (1957, reissued 1983); Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France, trans. from French (1987); Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1982), and The Forbidden Best-sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (1995); Carla Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1810 (1991); and Alvin Kernan, Samuel Johnson & the Impact of Print (1989). The impact of electronic media on the book’s place in Western culture is hotly debated; these works provide an overview: Alvin Kernan, The Death of Literature (1990); Geoffrey Nunberg, “The Places of Books in the Age of Electronic Reproduction,” Representations, 42:13–37 (Spring 1993); and Geoffrey Nunberg (ed.), The Future of the Book (1996).

The history of the publishing industries of various individual countries is chronicled in John Feather, The Provincial Book Trade in Eighteenth-Century England (1985); John Feather, A History of British Publishing (1988); Gary Marker, Publishing, Printing, and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia, 1700–1800 (1985); K.S. Duggal, Book Publishing in India (1980); Vinod Kumar (ed.), Book Industry in India: Problems & Prospects (1980); Eduard Kimman, Indonesian Publishing: Economic Organizations in a Langganan Society (1981); S.I.A. Kotei, The Book Today in Africa (1981); George L. Parker, The Beginnings of the Book Trade in Canada (1985); Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, The Book in America: A History of the Making and Selling of Books in the United States, 2nd rev. ed. (1951; originally published in German, 1937); John Tebbel, A History of Book Publishing in the United States, 4 vol. (1972–81); and Donald Franklin Joyce, Gatekeepers of Black Culture: Black-Owned Book Publishing in the United States, 1817–1981 (1983). Comprehensive information on the history and character of American book publishers is gathered in two reference sources, both prepared by Peter Dzwonkoski (ed.), American Literary Publishing Houses, 1638–1899, 2 vol. (1986), and American Literary Publishing Houses, 1900–1980: Trade and Paperback (1986).

Publishing of paperbacks is the subject of Allen Billy Crider (ed.), Mass Market Publishing in America (1982); Kenneth C. Davis, Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America (1984); Clarence Petersen, The Bantam Story: Thirty Years of Paperback Publishing, 2nd rev. ed. (1975); and William H. Lyles, Putting Dell on the Map: A History of the Dell Paperbacks (1983). Production of special kinds of books is discussed in Joan Lyons, Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook (1985), an overview of the genre of book art; Walter W. Powell, Getting into Print: The Decision-Making Process in Scholarly Publishing (1985); International Conference on Scholarly Publishing, Proceedings from the 3rd International Conference on Scholarly Publishing (1983); and Alan Marshall Meckler, Micropublishing: A History of Scholarly Micropublishing in America, 1938–1980 (1982).

The following are histories of individual publishing firms, some compiled by the companies themselves: Butterworths (firm), Butterworths: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (1977); Philip Wallis, At the Sign of the Ship: Notes on the House of Longman, 1724–1974 (1974); Peter Sutcliffe, The Oxford University Press: An Informal History (1978); M.H. Black, Cambridge University Press, 1584–1984 (1984), a definitive history, supplemented by David McKitterick, Four Hundred Years of University Printing and Publishing in Cambridge, 1584–1984 (1984), an exhibition catalogue; Eugene Exman, The House of Harper: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Publishing (1967), with coverage of early U.S. copyright complications; Thomas Bonaventure Lawler, Seventy Years of Textbook Publishing: A History of Ginn and Company (1938); Russell Freedman, Holiday House: The First Fifty Years (1985), the history of a publisher of children’s books; John Hammond Moore, Wiley, One Hundred and Seventy Five Years of Publishing (1982); and Peter Schwed, Turning the Pages: An Insider’s Story of Simon & Schuster, 1924–1984 (1984).

Marketing aspects are emphasized in Charles Lee, The Hidden Public: The Story of the Book-of-the-Month Club (1958, reprinted 1973), a cultural and business history; William M. Childs and Donald E. McNeil (eds.), American Books Abroad: Toward a National Policy (1986), with information on cultural diplomacy; Alberto E. Augsburger, The Latin American Book Market: Problems and Prospects (1981); and William E. Freeman, Soviet Book Exports, 1973–82 (1984), a research report published by the U.S. Information Agency.

Newspaper publishing

General accounts of the world press are offered in Francis Williams, The Right to Know: The Rise of the World Press (1969); John C. Merrill, Carter R. Bryan, and Marvin Alisky, The Foreign Press: A Survey of the World’s Journalism (1970), concentrating on newspapers but also containing some data on magazines; William Ludlow Chenery, Freedom of the Press (1955, reprinted 1977); World Communications: A 200-Country Survey of Press, Radio, Television, and Film, 5th ed. (1975); Anthony Smith, The Newspaper: An International History (1979); Anthony Smith (ed.), Newspapers and Democracy: International Essays on a Changing Medium (1980); John C. Merrill and Harold A. Fisher, The World’s Great Dailies (1980); and Cyril Bainbridge (ed.), One Hundred Years of Journalism: Social Aspects of the Press (1984). Business aspects are discussed in W. Parkman Rankin, The Practice of Newspaper Management (1986); and Benjamin M. Compaine, The Newspaper Industry in the 1980s: An Assessment of Economics and Technology (1980).

Newspaper publishing in Britain is discussed in Michael Harris and Alan Lee (eds.), The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries (1986); Lucy Brown, Victorian News and Newspapers (1985); Graham Storey, Reuters’ Century, 1851–1951 (1951, reprinted 1969), a history including information on important U.S. agencies; James Curran, The British Press: A Manifesto (1978); Simon Jenkins, Newspapers: The Power and the Money (1979), and The Market for Glory: Fleet Street Ownership in the Twentieth Century (1986); Alastair Hetherington, News, Newspapers, and Television (1985); and David Goodhart and Patrick Wintour, Eddie Shah and the Newspaper Revolution (1986), an account of the first electronically produced national newspaper.

The press of the United States is analyzed in Benjamin M. Compaine et al.,Who Owns the Media?: Concentration of Ownership in the Mass Communications Industry, 2nd rev. ed. (1982); Loren Ghiglione (ed.), The Buying and Selling of America’s Newspapers (1984); Peter Benjaminson, Death in the Afternoon: America’s Newspaper Giants Struggle for Survival (1984); Richard Kluger, The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune (1986); Marilyn McAdams Sibley, Lone Stars and State Gazettes: Texas Newspapers Before the Civil War (1983); and Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., and James W. Parins, American Indian and Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 3 vol. (1984–86).

Susan Goldenberg, The Thomson Empire (1984), is a business history of one of the largest Canadian newspaper corporations. Les Carlyon, Paper Chase: The Press Under Investigation (1982), is a study of newspaper publishing in Australia. The press of Third World countries is the subject of E. Lloyd Sommerlad, The Press in Developing Countries (1966); and John A. Lent (ed.), Newspapers in Asia: Contemporary Trends and Problems (1982).

Magazine publishing

Ruari McLean, Magazine Design (1969), presents a collection of the covers of famous American and European magazines. Studies of magazine publishing in various individual countries include, on Great Britain, Cynthia L. White, Women’s Magazines, 1693–1968 (1970), and The Women’s Periodical Press in Britain, 1946–1976 (1977); and Alvin Sullivan (ed.), British Literary Magazines, 4 vol. (1983–86); on the United States, Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (1964); Walter C. Daniel, Black Journals in the United States (1982); James P. Danky (ed.), Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828–1982: Bibliography, Publishing Record, and Holdings (1984); Edward E. Chielens (ed.), American Literary Magazines: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1986); and James Playsted Wood, Of Lasting Interest: The Story of the Reader’s Digest (1958, reprinted 1975); on Canada, Noel Robert Barbour, Those Amazing People!: The Story of the Canadian Magazine Industry, 1778–1967 (1982); and, on Germany, Ernst Behler, Die Zeitschriften der Bruder Schlegel: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Romantik (1983).

Scholarly journals are discussed in E.C. Slater, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta: The Story of a Biochemical Journal (1986), which also includes details of publishing in The the Netherlands; and Jill Lambert, Scientific and Technical Journals (1985). Michael L. Cook, Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines (1983), describes more than 400 American, British, and Canadian magazines of the genre, with brief listings for several other countries.

Business aspects of magazine publishing are the subject of J. William Click and Russell N. Baird, Magazine Editing and Production, 4th ed. (1986); Benjamin M. Compaine, The Business of Consumer Magazines (1982); and W. Parkman Rankin and Eugene Sauve Waggaman, Jr.,Business Management of General Consumer Magazines, 2nd ed. (1984). Current coverage is found in Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management (monthly, with special issues).